David Lammy: I join the hon. Gentleman in expressing what I am sure is the whole House's concern about what happened to the Cutty Sark this morning. The Secretary of State and I will go to the Cutty Sark after questions today. It is a hugely important part of our national maritime heritage, and we hope, as does everyone, that it will be restored for the third time for the country to enjoy.
	As the hon. Gentleman knows, I cannot pre-empt the Chancellor from the Dispatch Box and commit the Department's heritage spending over the next period. What I can say is that it is right for us to build on success. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we given English Heritage £130 million a year, and that the successful listed places of worship scheme has brought £56 million back to our churches. I can also say that the Heritage Lottery Fund will still have £700 million to spend between 2009 and 2012, of which we can all be proud.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: Will my right hon. Friend investigate how many local authorities are underusing facilities that have been provided for dual use with education? Unfortunately, Staffordshire is not alone in its mismanagement of facilities. They are vital, and a certain amount of imagination and urgency would improve the management of them and provide much wider cover for children.

Richard Caborn: My hon. Friend might well have a point. As I travel around the country I talk a lot to those involved in the partnerships—such as the schools—on how they have been constructed. There is often a problem in having community use in school hours. There is an issue to do with the separation of the children from the general public, and the physical nature of the activities can create problems, as can the location of schools. I was in the east end of London last week, and I came across that. We are consulting Building Schools for the Future and Sport England and trying to introduce best practice, so I hope some such problems will be resolved in the future.

Richard Caborn: Both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I meet regularly with representatives of the sports governing bodies to discuss sports policy matters. The most recent meeting was on 16 May.

Sally Keeble: As my right hon. Friend will know, the sporting bodies are spending a lot of time and money on tackling ticket touting, especially on the internet, and on sports betting. What is he doing—perhaps by way of regulations—to support the sporting bodies in that so that money that goes on what are in some respects frauds on the public can instead go on increasing community access to sport?

Richard Caborn: To make it clear, there will be 17 disciplines in the Olympics, on 14 of which Team GB can proceed unhindered. There are three disciplines about which we have written to our colleagues in the Home Office, because Dunblane and the action taken in response are still with us. The hon. Gentleman knows that we put legislation on the statute book, and it was absolutely right to do so. We have asked, as we did for the Commonwealth games in Manchester, whether we could facilitate the practice of those disciplines. We could do so for the Commonwealth games, and I have no doubt that we will try to do so for the Olympics. Nevertheless, we have written to the Home Office, and asked it to review the issue, and it will come back with a response. The hon. Gentleman has met all those governing bodies, but it might not be a bad idea if he got the leader of his party to meet them. He is like the Scarlet Pimpernel—they seek him here, they seek him there, and the sport seeks him everywhere. He has not responded to any governing body—

Andrew Rosindell: Bearing in mind that the Electoral Commission bears much of the responsibility for the fiasco in Scotland, should there not be a fully independent inquiry, in which the Electoral Commission plays no part, so that we can get to the root of what happened, rather than having the same people making the same decisions and looking into the same issue?

Peter Viggers: The Electoral Commission has gone on record as saying that it would prefer to have individual registration, which it thinks would assist the postal voting system to be tightened up. However, I will ensure that Mr. Gould's attention is drawn to the specific point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend.

Ruth Kelly: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the planning system. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, one of the great civilising reforms of Attlee's Government. That Act laid the framework for a planning system that has helped create thriving towns, protect our most beautiful countryside, and ensure green spaces around our cities. Its adaptability has been key to years of success. Further reform will help ensure its success for the future, too.
	But today we also face significant and growing challenges that could not have been imagined 60 years ago, from climate change, to globalisation, to energy security in an uncertain world. If we are to meet those challenges successfully, planning must be part of the solution. In its current form, it is simply not up to the task. Both Kate Barker, in her review of land use planning, and Sir Rod Eddington, in his review of transport infrastructure, have highlighted the shortcomings of the planning system.
	First, an inaccessible and sometimes baffling system makes it hard for people to have their say on issues that can have a big impact on their quality of life. Too often it favours the well-resourced over the less well-off. Secondly, decision making can be painfully slow, causing costs and prolonged uncertainty that are in no one's interests—not individuals', or communities', or developers'. Thirdly, where good and necessary development is held up, it can mean society missing out on the reliable transport, secure energy, clean water or public amenities that we all need. The costs of not acting are clear, and will only grow more acute in future: energy shortages, mounting congestion, loss of jobs and a worse quality of life. Indeed, an effective planning system is vital for delivering Government policy across a wide range of areas.
	The White Paper that I am publishing today sets out a series of proposals to meet the challenges of the future and continue to reform the town and country planning system. The White Paper represents the result of joint working across Government, in particular with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry, for Transport and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Let me first address the proposals on how we take decisions about major infrastructure, such as transport, environmental, waste or energy projects—everything from roads, to reservoirs, power plants and wind farms.
	The system for taking those decisions has grown up piecemeal over decades with complex, unwieldy and overlapping rules. Some developments have to get approval under a number of different pieces of legislation, and make numerous separate applications. We need a simpler system to respond to the challenges that we face. The White Paper will ensure that decisions are taken in a way that is transparent and timely, and achieves the right balance of interests.
	There are three key elements to our proposed new procedures for national infrastructure projects. First, Ministers will issue national policy statements about the infrastructure that the country needs for the next 10 to 25 years. Those statements will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and intense public debate, making sure that people have early input into the formulation of the policy, rather than rehearsing the same arguments over and over again in different local inquiries.
	Secondly, we are replacing the numerous and sometimes overlapping consent regimes for major infrastructure projects with a single system. That will provide a far clearer and more accessible application process than at present.
	Thirdly, we propose to create a new independent infrastructure planning commission. That will bring together experts from key sectors, including planners, lawyers, environmentalists and others. Guided by the national policy statements, the commission will oversee the planning inquiry process on specific major developments and take the final decisions on whether they should go ahead. It will listen closely to local concerns, and where the commission approves an application, it will be able to specify measures to mitigate the impact on a local area. It will be accountable to Ministers and Parliament for its performance. We believe that it will bring greater objectivity, transparency and accountability to the decision-making process.
	Some interest groups promote a false choice between speed and public engagement. Our reforms will achieve both, providing opportunities for better public engagement at every step in the process. There will be public engagement in the formulation of the national policy statements, at the scheme development stage and during the inquiry process. We are backing that up with a new legal duty for developers to consult the public. Consultation must not be a box-ticking process, but a genuine opportunity for local people to have their say in shaping the places where they live. In addition, we are increasing resources for bodies such as Planning Aid, which will help more communities and individuals get access to free professional planning advice.
	As well as new procedures for major infrastructure projects, the White Paper outlines measures to improve the town and country planning system. Kate Barker's report recognised the progress that had been made in recent years to speed up the system and make it more effective, but it also stressed the need to reform further for greater flexibility, responsiveness and efficiency.
	Our White Paper responds to those recommendations. Our aim is to create a level playing field that better integrates economic, social and environmental objectives. We will do that by building on the success of the plan-led system with sustainability at its heart. New planning policy statements on economic development and climate change will clarify the national policy on those vital issues. We will also streamline our planning policy documents to devolve where appropriate to local decision makers.
	We will continue to promote prosperous and thriving town centres. Our town centre first policy has been a real success, with more than two fifths of retail development now in town centres, compared to just a quarter in 1994. It will remain in place, but there is scope for it to be more effective. The current needs test can sometimes be a blunt instrument to gauge the impact of development on town centres. In future, we will require better assessment of how new developments will affect town centres, including the impact on high streets and local shops. Development outside the town centre should not go ahead where it will impact detrimentally on the town centre. We are also reaffirming our commitment to the fundamentals of green-belt policy. It has served us well for 60 years and will continue to do so in the future.
	It is vital that planning plays its part in tackling climate change. We will make it easier for householders to reduce their fuel bills and carbon footprint by installing small-scale renewable technologies such as solar panels. In addition, building on the progress made on new homes, my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning will work with industry to deliver a significant reduction in carbon emissions from new offices and shops.
	We are strengthening the role of local government in planning, too. We want to enable local authorities to use planning effectively as a tool to achieve their vision for their area. We will continue to work with partners, including the Local Government Association and the planning profession, to improve performance. With this growing local expertise we aim to devolve further decision making to local communities and to reduce the number of town and country planning cases called in by the Secretary of State.
	Our reforms will make town and country planning applications more efficient. We will make it easier for people to make minor improvements to their homes, such as building conservatories or small extensions, while continuing to protect the interests of neighbours and local communities. That will enable councils to focus resources on the genuinely difficult cases. We will also both simplify planning applications and speed up the appeals system.
	Our reforms will be good for citizens, who will have greater opportunities to have their say at every stage in the process and the chance to make minor improvements to their homes more easily. Our reforms will be good for communities, by supporting sustainable and vibrant town centres and helping to create safe and healthy places to live.
	Our reforms will be good for business, giving greater certainty about the national policy framework to encourage investment and faster decisions on developments. Our reforms will be good for the country, with better access to reliable transport, secure energy, clean water supplies and better local amenities. Finally, our reforms will put climate change and sustainable development where they belong; right at the heart of the planning system.
	Our proposals build on Attlee's legacy and give us a planning system fit for the 21st century. I commend the White Paper to the House.

Caroline Spelman: First, I thank the Secretary of State for letting me have a copy of the White Paper at the same time as the statement.
	It is just three years since the Government's last attempt at planning reform and some of the guidance only reached councils last month. Does the Secretary of State accept that the Government are having to re-do the exercise because the Act designed to speed up the process and engage local people has only made planning more sclerotic and left communities feeling more disempowered?
	How does the Secretary of State explain that, after 10 years in power and with all the rhetoric about increasing home ownership, the number of home owners is declining for the first time in recorded history and the number of houses being built fell again last year?
	Of course we all want to see a planning system that is simpler, swifter and seen to be fair. So why not start by abolishing the Deputy Prime Minister's regional planning bodies, which are unelected, unaccountable and unwanted? Does she not realise that the centralised planning, micromanaged targets and plethora of contradictory edicts that have snarled up the planning system have emanated from the Government and reflect their core philosophy of top-down control, with the bureaucrats in Whitehall knowing best?
	It was the Chancellor who hired Kate Barker to review the planning process and he has bought her case for a centralised and undemocratic planning quango. How does that square with his promise last week to
	"devolve power to localities and listen to the people"?
	The promised engagement and consultation are not the same as decision making, so why are local people being offered less say under the Prime Minister-elect than under his predecessor?
	We all accept that there are some projects of strategic national importance that have been too delayed in the past, but is that a reason for creating an unelected and unaccountable quango as a means of passing the ministerial buck? Conservatives will vigorously oppose this erosion of local democracy.
	We welcome the news that the Government have rejected Kate Barker's recommendation that regional planning bodies should review the green belt, but is that rejection meaningful when the present regional spatial strategies propose housing targets that compel the use of green belt to meet the housing quota?
	I am sure that Members on both sides will be concerned about plans to relax the restrictions on out-of-town retail development. How can the Government justify abolishing the needs test for out-of-town shopping when so many of Britain's towns have been turned into ghost towns by the dominance of retail parks on their peripheries? My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) created a life support machine for high streets with planning policy guidance note 6—PPG6—that the Government are about to switch off.
	We welcome more relaxed planning on home improvements, particularly the green energy measures that would have made the life of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) a lot easier. Does the Secretary of State accept, however, that the huge increase in such applications arises when people have to extend their homes because they cannot afford to move? Should not the Government apologise for presiding over a house price crisis stoked by increases in stamp duty and a doubling of council tax?
	On the subject of tax, I shall turn my attention to the planning gain supplement. We support the campaign to put i before e—infrastructure before expansion—but how can the Minister be so sure that infrastructure funding will find its way out of the Treasury and back to the local community? We accept that more homes need to be built, but why not seize the opportunity and regenerate the suburbs around Britain's cities and use vehicles such as community land trusts to get local homes for local people in Britain's towns and villages?
	I am disappointed that there is no recognition that garden-grabbing is an ongoing problem. The White Paper praises the increased use of brownfield sites, but what percentage of them are, in fact, gardens? Is it any wonder that appeals are up, when such development is so unpopular?
	The Government have presided over a housing crisis of monumental proportions. Despite all their schemes, targets and meddling, key workers cannot afford to live near their work; the young cannot get a foot on the housing ladder; homelessness is higher than it was under the last Conservative Government; and the rate of social house building is down.
	Only last week, the Chancellor pledged to stop politics being a spectator sport and to provide a voice for communities, but does not this White Paper show that the reality falls far short of the rhetoric and that when it comes to planning this Government choose centralised bureaucracy over local democracy every time?

Ruth Kelly: I was going to say that I was disappointed by the hon. Lady's response, but frankly I am staggered. After five minutes listening to the hon. Lady, it is still not clear whether she favours the proposals. This is a serious set of proposals to meet some of the future challenges that we face as a country, particularly on major infrastructure. Is she in favour, or is she against? Whenever the Government put forward the substance of a policy, the Opposition duck it. Whether it is planning or increasing housing, which it is obvious that the hon. Lady does not support in any single part of the country, when faced by long-term, difficult challenges, she has nothing to say.
	The hon. Lady has said that the process will be somehow inaccessible to the public. I think that she misunderstands how the current planning system works for major infrastructure projects. The process for terminal 5 took seven years to complete, and there were 37 different applications and seven different pieces of legislation for different Ministers to consider throughout the process. At the end of the process, Hillingdon borough council had to withdraw from fighting the appeal through lack of funding and resources. That is not a system in which local people had the opportunity to have a real say.
	We are putting forward policies where there will be an opportunity for early input from local people, environmentalists and different stakeholder groups on the national policy statement. There will be an opportunity for engagement before the development application is made when the scheme is being worked up, and there will be an opportunity for the public to have their say during the local inquiry process, too. The process will deliver greater speed and certainty, so people will have the opportunity to have their say. We will back that up with more planning resources to help hard-to-reach communities get involved.
	The hon. Lady has argued that we are somehow centralising those measures, but throughout the White Paper we make it clear that we are taking decisions at the appropriate level. If a decision is made on a national infrastructure project, it is right that we have a national policy debate. When local decisions are made, it is right that we devolve more of them to local communities. We have said that some decisions currently taken by Ministers will, we hope, be taken by local authorities. That is one reason why the Local Government Association welcomed the proposals today—the Tory-led Local Government Association, dare I say.
	I welcome the hon. Lady's support for making microgeneration easier. She also said that the issue of back garden development should be on the table. However, that does not add up to a serious policy proposal from the Opposition.
	Let us consider the hon. Lady's town centre policy proposals. She says that we should not remove the needs test. Does she not accept that the needs test can have a perverse effect on town centres? We need a policy that promotes the vitality and sustainability of our town centres.  [ Interruption . ] The hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alan Duncan) asks from a sedentary position how we are going to do it. I shall give an example. If a developer put in an application for an edge-of-town-centre development that would drain that town centre's vitality, it could be refused on the basis of a needs test saying that there was already existing capacity in relation to another developer who had an out-of-town site. That does not help town centres. In future, we want a stronger impact test that considers the impact of any development on the town centre.
	I am incredibly disappointed by the hon. Lady, who has failed to meet the challenges for the future. She has failed even to say whether she welcomes the White Paper that has been put before the House. This package will be good for citizens and will deliver speed and certainty for business. I commend it to the House.

Ruth Kelly: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's more balanced approach to the proposals. His first point was about the balance in the proposals between the environmental, economic and social considerations. There are two parts to the proposals: the major infrastructure projects and the town and country planning system. In the latter, we have deliberately not taken an approach that favours one aspect over another. Indeed, sustainability in the plan-led process is at the heart of local planning. I hope that he welcomes that. However, we want people to think positively about planning, which is why we will revise the principles of the planning system and introduce a new planning policy statement on economic development.
	I believe that I have already dealt with the point about major infrastructure projects in reply to the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman). The system will produce greater timeliness, greater transparency and the ability for local people to have their say in the process. When the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) has time to examine the detail, he will realise that, for the first time, there will be a statutory duty to consult local people. To answer his specific question, local people will have the opportunity to have their say in hearings during a planning inquiry as the system moves from favouring those who can afford to pay lawyers' fees to enabling those who are hard to reach to influence the outcome of the inquiry process.
	The independent planning commission will have the power to turn down an application even if it is consistent with the national policy statement if, for example, a proposal's local disbenefit or cost to a community is greater than its perceived national benefit.
	The hon. Gentleman said that the devil was in the detail on town centre development. I grant him that because it is a complex subject. We have been discussing those issues with stakeholders and so on. They have not had an opportunity to read our proposals yet and I am sure that they are listening intently to the debate. However, we will introduce a stronger impact test, which we will formulate and publish so that people have the opportunity to have an input into its development, thus enabling us to promote our town centres and continue our town centre first policy. The sequential test will remain in place.
	The package of proposals is sensible and will work for the benefit of citizens and communities as well as businesses, environmentalists and other groups.

Ruth Kelly: I welcome the right hon. and learned Gentleman's statesmanlike tone. It is absolutely right that he realises that, although we need to deal with the major infrastructural challenges of the future, we also need to do so in a way that recognises that local communities must have an appropriate influence on the national policy statement. Clearly, public investment is different from private sector investment, but where the plans are spatially specific—perhaps where the public sector outlines major road spending—it would be right for the local communities to be able to influence the drawing-up of the national policy statement in the first place. It is right, too, for the infrastructure planning commission to sit locally and hear local input directly in order to bring that into its deliberations.

Ruth Kelly: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. She is presumably aware of the recently published heritage White Paper which proposed a new, streamlined regime for listed buildings. There is nothing in today's White Paper that dilutes those necessary safeguards.

Jeremy Corbyn: Is the Secretary of State not concerned that by setting up an infrastructure planning commission we are reducing democracy in this country by effectively devolving powers to an unelected commission that is accountable to Parliament only for its performance and not for its decisions, and that major issues such as nuclear power stations could be pushed through at the end of the day without any democratic vote or voice whatever?

Julian Lewis: It took a five-year campaign and a year-long public inquiry to stop Associated British Ports from building a huge container port at Dibden Bay on the edge of the New Forest. Does the Secretary of State accept that in many cases the larger the proposal, the wiser it is to allow a long time to elapse before a decision is made? I believe that if that process had been foreshortened, there would now be a huge container port on the edge of the New Forest. I also believe that we would not have heard the admission last September that what the protesters had said all along was true, and that, having denied it for all those years, ABP could massively increase the productivity of its existing container port—which, indeed, it is now proceeding to do.

Alan Johnson: First, I am delighted to see the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber. May I say how much we support his stance in seeking to convince his party to, in his words, "confront the evidence"? It is a huge compliment to Tony Crosland that the Opposition have someone like the hon. Gentleman in their Front-Bench team.
	Since the establishment of the LSC, all of us thought it was rather strange, to say the least, that although we had set up regional development agencies and a number of other regional structures, the LSC did not have a regional structure but 47 local learning and skills council organisations. That was a mismatch. Four years ago, we gave a regional dimension to LSCs, but the purpose now is to establish a full-blown regional committee.
	As for local partnerships, in Greater Manchester one learning and skills organisation covers the whole area, but there will be 10 much leaner, much more flexible versions of the LSC that can deal with the different communities around Manchester. In a sense, that is devolution upwards to the region but, in another sense, it is a much more powerful approach to the LSC locally.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I held an event at Highbury college in my constituency last year, which was attended by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the hon. Member for Corby (Phil Hope). We brought together employers, FE providers and young people, but there seemed to be something of a mismatch between what the college was providing and what the employers wanted. Highbury college is very much in favour of being able to award its own foundation degrees. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will come on to that later, but does he think that that will be a key element in making sure that we get that correlation right?

Alan Johnson: I do, and the interesting fact that Foster pointed out—in a report that I am proud to say I commissioned when I was Minister of State in this Department—was that 80 per cent. of employers never go anywhere near an FE college. That shows that awareness of what employers need is crucial to the future of FE colleges.
	We need to ensure that we are providing what colleges and employers need. That is why we have included a duty in this part of the Bill that the LSC must have regard to guidance on consulting with employers, learners and prospective students, as it oversees further education provision in a system that is increasingly led by the demands of learners and employers.
	Further measures in this part seek to clarify the power of the LSC to form and invest in any type of company in the provision of education and training, with the consent of the Secretary of State, and to design, develop and operate support services on behalf of individuals and educational institutions, again with consent.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I say to the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the reasoned amendment standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

David Willetts: I recognise that colleges sometimes have those problems, but when we established the legislation in 1992, there was a clear legal framework about who was responsible for what. The Secretary of State is in danger of dividing up responsibility between the governing body of the corporation, which is supposed to take legal responsibility for the college, and the Secretary of State and the Department for Education and Skills. Each will blame the other, which is a recipe for the type of problems that the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) has referred to, which happened in the past and which, I fear, will recur again.

Paul Murphy: For the first time in 16 years, I rise to speak in the House on an education Bill. It is interesting that it coincides with the shadow Secretary of State's comments about the inception of the incorporation of further education. I was a Member of the House when that was debated and discussed, and it was not such a noble birth. It came about, of course, as a result of the chaos surrounding the poll tax. When all that collapsed, the Government wanted some money, so they brought in the concept of incorporation of further education. I would not reverse that decision and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would not either, but that was the reason why FE was incorporated in the first instance.
	I also speak as someone who taught in further education for nearly two decades. What astounds me about the comments of shadow Secretary of State is how he fails to recognise some of the most important and significant statistics on FE. For example, 4 million people—more than all our sixth formers put together—are benefiting from FE, almost half the entrants to higher education come from further education and almost 250,000 people over the age of 16 go into our FE institutions and benefit from the courses they provide. I remember being a young 22-year-old, know-it-all teacher, teaching European history to a 75-year-old woman who had lived through the period I was teaching. At the end of the year, I knew that I should not have been quite so arrogant.
	I welcome the detailed provisions in the Bill. I shall not comment on the Learning and Skills Council for England, as it does not affect my constituents, but I would like to comment on degree-awarding powers. I agree that there is a need to ensure the proper quality of the degrees offered at FE colleges, and I am sure that when the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning winds up the debate, he will provide us with an assurance about that.
	I am not quite so sure about the difficulties that some hon. Members have with the dismissal of principals. I would like to refer to an incident that occurred more than a decade ago in Wales. Members for what was then the county of Gwent got together because of the huge financial problems at Gwent college, which was moving into financial chaos and ruin. Those MPs instructed the National Audit Office to look into the problems and to let the then Secretary of State for Wales know about what had happened. The then Welsh Office, together with the governing body, decided between them that the principal had to go, otherwise the college would have gone from worse to worst. The important point is that in some areas of the country, FE colleges provide all the post-16 education, so unless there is a guarantee of proper management at the top of those colleges, the education of our post-16 youngsters—and, indeed, the not-so-youngsters over 16—could be greatly affected.
	I know that the overwhelming majority of college principals are good men and women, but there will be some who are poor performers and their continued employment in that job will mean youngsters fail to benefit from further education in our constituencies. In those instances, the best way around the problem is for the Government to talk to the governing bodies in order to reach a decision jointly. There has to be an ultimate deterrent; otherwise the people who suffer will be the students attending those colleges.

Paul Murphy: Yes, in most cases, that would be the answer. I suspect that the Minister will tell us that, ultimately, he needs some power in order to put into effect the results of any such investigation. I would hope that the matter would be dealt with in that way. It is wrong to assume that every principal in the country is excellent—occasionally there will be difficulties.
	I also welcome the Bill's attention to the skills in our country. Anyone who looks at the Republic of Ireland, for example, will see that that Celtic tiger, as it is known, has quite rightly become one of the most prosperous—if not the most prosperous—member of the European Union because of the attention paid to further education there.
	My main concern is about clause 25 of the Bill, which devolves to the National Assembly for Wales legislative powers relating to further education. Let me say straight away that I entirely agree with what the clause does. I am concerned, however, about the way in which we deal with the pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills and orders that give the National Assembly for Wales new legislative powers. Jane Davidson is the Minister for Lifelong Learning in Wales, and on 1 February this year, she made a speech in Cardiff welcoming the Bill. I repeat, therefore, that I have no problem with the principle of devolving the powers to the National Assembly.
	However, in the debate on Second Reading and other debates on this issue in the other place, my noble Friend Lord Ted Rowlands made reference to the fact that this is not quite what was expected when the Government of Wales Bill was debated in this place. As a former Secretary of State for Wales, I took some time to speak in the debates on that legislation to ensure that this House gave proper scrutiny to any primary law-making powers that were to be devolved to the National Assembly.
	I have asked a number of parliamentary questions on this issue. The Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning told me in a written reply that:
	"Members of both Houses will be able to scrutinise and suggest amendments to the Bill during its remaining parliamentary passage, including in relation to the provisions for Wales."—[ Official Report, 9 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 559W.]
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales went further, saying:
	"To assist parliamentary scrutiny, all framework powers granting wider and more permissive powers to the Assembly will be accompanied by an explanatory memorandum"—
	which I and all Welsh Members have received—
	"setting out the policy context underlying the proposals. Copies will be sent to all Welsh MPs and will be placed in the libraries of both Houses."—[ Official Report, 11 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 661W.]
	That has indeed happened.
	I welcome all that; these are important developments. I am concerned, however, about the pre-legislative scrutiny; we probably missed it in this case. I hope that all Departments will take care to ensure that, when parts of Bills—as opposed to orders—delegate to the National Assembly new law-making powers of a primary nature, this House takes a proper look at those elements in a pre-legislative manner, particularly through the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs.
	I say that in the context of the completely changed position in regard to devolution. Last week, we saw dramatic changes in Scotland. We have yet to find out what the nature of the Government in Wales will be. There might be a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, or some kind of agreement with Plaid Cymru, or none of those things, resulting in a so-called rainbow coalition—although I am not sure how we can take the red out of a rainbow. Any such coalition should have regard to the party that was granted the most seats and, indeed, the most votes. That, however, is another issue.
	The point is that we are in uncertain waters, and what we shall see over the next four years will be very different from the devolution that we have seen in the past. It is therefore incumbent on the Government to ensure that, when we give law-making powers to the National Assembly for Wales, the House of Commons has proper scrutiny of those powers.

Sarah Teather: This is not a particularly exciting Bill. It has been described by Ministers elsewhere as largely a tidying-up exercise. I do not think that it merits the view expressed by the Secretary of State that 2007-08 is the year of skills. The Secretary of State is no longer in his place; I assume that he has gone off to run his campaign, which is probably a lot more exciting than listening to a speech from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear!"] I know my place.
	The Government have initiated two major reviews of the further education sector in a relatively short time but, rather bafflingly, they have now produced this short and rather technical Bill that fails to implement most of the recommendations of either review. The Secretary of State referred at the outset of his speech to the Leitch review but, as he acknowledged, the Bill contains nothing that deals with the Leitch recommendations.
	The hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) spoke about Foster's recommendations on regulation. Of course, Foster recommended major changes to simplify the funding of further education, and the further education White Paper promised a technical funding group to consider the issue, but there is nothing in the Bill to implement that. It is a real shame that the Government have failed to use the Bill to simplify the complex and confusing funding arrangements between learning and skills councils and local authorities. If only they had chosen to shift funding for 16-to-19 provision to local authorities, we could have proper joined-up funding. That could herald the beginning of a system in which money could follow students as they move between schools and colleges, enabling them to mix vocational and academic courses. Schools and colleges could thereby collaborate on a fair footing, instead of one on which college students find themselves short-changed by as much as £200 each.
	Similarly, the Bill does nothing to address the UK's long-term skills needs, which Leitch's report outlined, as others have said. It says nothing about the link between skills and welfare to work. Looking forward to 2020, it says nothing about the optimal skills mix to maximise economic growth, productivity and social justice. When will the Government bring forward a meatier Bill to tackle the issues outlined in the Leitch report? Perhaps we will have to wait for the next Prime Minister for that.
	This is a short Bill, which says little and does less. I am not convinced, however, that its vacuous nature alone is sufficient reason to oppose it, as the Conservatives appear to be suggesting that they will do. For a short and not very exciting Bill, it certainly provoked some controversy in the other place—controversy would be reason to oppose it. The Bill that we are debating, however, has been amended by the other place. While the Liberal Democrats will seek further changes, reassurances and clarifications in Committee, we will not oppose the Bill's passage at this stage.
	I am a little baffled by the Conservatives' reasoned amendment and sudden opposition to the Bill, which is out of kilter with their stance during its passage in the other place. It appears to be something of a grandstanding gesture, and perhaps a bit of a distraction from the internal row last week.  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Havant is so busy talking, he has not even heard me insult him.
	Furthermore, the reasoned amendment criticises the Bill for containing something that is no longer there: the most controversial aspect of the Bill—the transfer of powers from the Secretary of State to the Learning and Skills Council to remove college principals—was taken out by Opposition parties in the other place. If, as the Secretary of State suggested, the Government insist on putting that provision back in the Bill, we will vehemently oppose that in Committee and subsequently. That is an issue of principle. As others have pointed out, the Bill appears directly to contradict the Government's White Paper. FE colleges are independent corporations, and we should also note that Learning and Skills Council funding represents but one share of a college's funding—others being student and employer contributions. It is not therefore clear why the Learning and Skills Council alone should have that power, especially as it is not even an elected body with accountability.

Don Touhig: I welcome the Bill, which will equip learners with the high-quality skills that they need in order to compete in the global jobs market. As one who has always argued that we must constantly re-train and upskill our people to meet the challenges of a global economy, I am pleased that the Bill ensures that employers will have the same opportunities to gain new skills in order to make their businesses succeed in a competitive world.
	In my constituency, almost all post-16 education takes place at a college of further education. A similar situation exists in most of the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who spoke a little earlier. Like him, I well remember the problems that we faced at Gwent college, and the need—in order to save that college from financial ruin—for steps to be taken to change the senior management and remove the principal. Heaven only knows what would have happened otherwise.
	Although I welcome the Bill, I am troubled—as was my right hon. Friend—by clause 25, which makes amendments to the Government of Wales Act 2006. If the clause is approved, it will transfer substantial responsibility to legislate for further education and training from Parliament to the National Assembly. Although I do not oppose the idea of using framework legislation to transfer power from Parliament to the Assembly, I think it wrong to do so without full parliamentary scrutiny of such a change to the devolution settlement. Notwithstanding the way in which it is being presented, the Bill contains a substantial constitutional change, and Parliament should have an opportunity to consider whether it is right to transfer those powers to the National Assembly.
	I am all the more concerned because this is the third time Parliament has been asked to transfer power to the National Assembly without proper scrutiny of the reasons for doing so. We have done it twice before, in the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and in the NHS Redress Act 2006. I am particularly worried after reading the memorandum prepared by the National Assembly in support of clause 25 and provided for us by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales. The memorandum implies that the format set out in clause 25 for giving the National Assembly primary legislative powers will become the norm. My noble Friend Lord Rowlands of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, to whom I spoke earlier today, was a member of the Richard commission, which examined changes in the powers of the Welsh Assembly, and he believes that that contradicts the spirit of the Government of Wales Act.
	The memorandum tells us that the provision to enhance the legislative competence of the Assembly reflects the new constitutional law-making provisions introduced by the Government of Wales Act. That is fine as far as it goes, but while the Bill may be the right way in which to deal with the future of further education and training, I think it quite wrong to make changes to the devolution settlement unless Parliament has first had an opportunity to consider the principle of transferring law-making powers to the Assembly. Clause 25 means that the Assembly, not Members of the House of Commons, will scrutinise and finally approve the proposals in the Bill. That has constitutional ramifications that clearly need to be debated separately from the Bill.
	Even more worrying is the implication in the memorandum that, unlike in England, the Assembly has not even consulted interested parties on what it should do with the powers if they are given to it. Parliament is not only being given no opportunity to consider the merits of transferring the powers, but being asked to transfer them when the Assembly has no settled view on the use of such powers. The memorandum tells us that until the Assembly consults interested parties, it is not in a position to specify the subordinate legislation that would be required.
	Under the Government of Wales Act 1998, secondary legislation is a matter for the National Assembly, but let us consider what that has meant in practice. When the Government have asked Parliament to delegate particular powers to a Minister of the Crown, draft regulations have often been published so that the House can better understand how Ministers will exercise such powers. Since devolution in 1999, when the Government have presented England and Wales Bills and have asked Parliament to delegate similar powers to the National Assembly as are being delegated to Ministers of the Crown, there has been an indication of how those powers will be used. That has been done very successfully, without impinging on the Assembly's right to make secondary legislation.
	One useful method that I employed when I was a Wales Minister was to publish an exchange of letters between myself and the relevant Assembly Minister so that Members of this House could, in effect, see something similar to draft regulations. Alas, that cannot happen in this case because the Assembly has consulted no one and has no view on what to do with the powers that the Government are asking us to pass on to it.
	We are told that only after carrying out a consultation and settling its own views will the Assembly be able to bring forward coherent proposals for legislation relating to its Welsh priorities and time scales for further education and training in Wales. If ever there was a case of putting the cart before the horse, this is it. We are told that the enhanced legislative competence sought by clause 25 will provide the framework for the implementation of key components of the Assembly's education policy in Wales. The memorandum tells us that that policy will be informed by the proposals of the Independent Review of the Mission and Purpose of Further Education in Wales in the Context of the Learning Country: Vision into Action—the Welsh can always be trusted to use 20 words when one will do.

Tim Boswell: That is certainly worth revisiting. There have always been difficulties with it and with the 16-hour rule. No one is advancing unlimited resources tonight. As a general principle, we must promote people's studies, not frustrate them in their pursuit of those studies.
	There are concerns across the piece—and they have surfaced a little today, particularly in relation to the controversial clauses on dismissal—about the quality of the delivery of further education. One would not be surprised if a sector involving 4 million students was subject to patchiness. One must recognise, too, that it is not simply the objective measurement of the grades attained by students taking A-levels in general FE colleges that is important, but the value added by a wide range of people, and not automatically the high flyers who are encouraged to stay on in school sixth forms, for example.
	A final problem in that area is the question of status. I had a telling exchange in my first two weeks in the Department of Education with a senior official, for whom I had the highest respect. A document came up saying, "This will require two A-levels." I knew that I needed to put down a marker, so I said very firmly, and in public, "Or, I take it, the equivalent vocational qualification." He turned round, with an angelic smile on his face, and said, "That, of course, Minister, goes without saying." He could not have been more eloquent about the way in which we still default to the academic model.
	I therefore welcome the Bill's practical focus on what further education does and how it works. At the same time, however, I celebrate FE's role in what I used to call the Heineken effect of education—it reaches the parts that other measures cannot reach. I want to emphasise, too, its role in the midfield. I once delivered a lecture in Berlin on the British politician as a midfield player. I think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not wish me to go too far down that road, but I do see further education as the midfield, moving forward on its own account, delivering and receiving ball, and being able to meet all its objectives in a way that no other sector can.
	My reservation about the Bill is that it hardly exemplifies what an American President once described, rather inelegantly, as "the vision thing". I shall come back to that before I conclude, but I am surprised by its title. Perhaps another essay could be written about the escalation of Bill titles, but it is now extremely unfashionable to attach the phrase "miscellaneous provisions" to any measure. I think that this ought to be called the Further Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. A more substantial response to Leitch may come along in the future, but this is a tidying-up exercise and not a major piece of legislation.
	I shall spare the Minister the inelegance of looking at the numerous speeches that I made during the passage of the Learning and Skills Act 2000. I said then that I did not like a structure that had a central point and 47 local delivery points in the same model. I must congratulate the Government on beginning—rather slowly and at some expense—to claw themselves back to the Conservative model of the 1990s, which involved a Further Education Funding Council and a modest representation in nine English regions. In my view, that representation was perhaps over modest, as there is a useful planning role to be fulfilled alongside the central model, but all the bureaucracy that we have had since then has not yet entirely disappeared. Even attenuated, the total cost of the LSC bureaucracy comes to £1.8 billion—a very heavy burden, and it comes out of what is available for front-line education.
	I wish the Government good luck with their proposed new regime incorporating the Mayor of London, but that will add another body. Characteristically, the only two bodies being removed by the Bill are the panels serving young and adult learners. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, with which I am still involved, shares my concern about the position of adult learners. Most of the LSC's expenditure has been concentrated on the cohort of young learners—that is, those at the 16 to 19 school-leaving age—but their numbers are about to decline. That means that the people who must be upskilled for employment will come from the existing adult labour force. We have somehow managed to reduce still further the direct representation of adult education interests in the LSC. That can be overcome, but I am serious when I say that we must strike a better balance.
	I share the two reservations about the Bill already expressed by various hon. Members. The first has to do with the "sack the principals" clause, which I find difficult in practice. It has been suggested that it might be useful in an emergency, but any hand-in-the-till problem can be overcome—or should be—by the governors. Typically, a much longer period of dysfunction will be involved: as I said in exchanges with the right hon. Member for Torfaen, it will be difficult to sack someone without a proper, in-depth investigation. After that, the matter can be brought to the governors, and they can assume their responsibility. My late father brought me up on the maxim of never hiring a dog and barking oneself. If we are prepared to give colleges and governors their freedom, they should be allowed to use it. The process will go wrong occasionally, and mechanisms—including financial sanctions—exist to rectify matters when that happens, but we must not work on the assumption that colleges and governors are always on sufferance, because they are not.
	My second difficulty has to do with the powers to award foundation degrees. Again, I have no objection in principle—indeed, as a strong supporter of further education, I rather welcome them. However, I can see all the difficulties that will be encountered with articulating them with progression, the interests of the modern universities, and the wider sector. Credit accumulation is one matter that has not been discussed so far. Can we be sure that a given institution will continue to exist? Another problem has to do with the "Bologna" process: I do not want a person from a less functional higher education system in another EU member state saying, "Not only have we to swallow your three-year first degrees, but what about that further education college that is now issuing its own degrees?" That is a real worry.
	A deeper worry is the relationship between an FE college and progression. I have heard various eloquent presentations about what is good in the Bill, but anything that causes a college to be isolated, with no reference to the schools with which it should be working in partnership as people arrive or to the higher education institutions to which they should progress naturally, would be a mistake. We need high standards, with FE colleges offering the maximum opportunity and progression.
	I said earlier that my concerns were about the Bill's lack of forward vision. Getting the administration right is important, but the Leitch agenda is not really addressed. No doubt that will be the subject of debate in the future, but I believe that the Government may be placing too much emphasis on train to gain. It may be a good idea, but we need the maximum number of potential vehicles to attract people into further education. Individual accounts and the self-management of learning are part of that.
	The Bill is also silent about qualification issues. They may be nuts and bolts matters, but they are very important. My hon. Friend the Member for Havant spoke about getting the diplomas right, but it is also about getting the right context for academic qualifications and what employers are likely to specify. We must also ensure that the relationship with apprenticeships is appropriate: I am still not clear whether diplomas parallel apprenticeships, or are alternatives to them, or whether they offer a natural progression to higher education. All those relationships need careful attention.

Angela Smith: I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman's comments. Indeed, as someone who tore up all her school books and put them in the bin on the last day of school, I was absolutely delighted to find that FE was exactly the place for me, and I saw that as a tutor with the hundreds of students who moved through the FE institution that I worked for.
	I studied shorthand and was the highest-achieving shorthand writer in more than a decade at my local FE institution. That in itself opened up an alternative career choice. If I had taken that route, I might well have been up in the Press Gallery taking the notes on this debate, rather than down here delivering one of the speeches. I chose not to take that route and, in many ways, I am probably grateful for that—although we very much value the work that is done in the Gallery.
	I want to draw attention to the commitment of the many students that I taught in FE. That relates to the hon. Gentleman's point. In my adult learning role, I have witnessed many students who have been willing to take time off work and to come in of an afternoon to receive one-to-one tuition in order to achieve their goals—in order to achieve the GCSE English or the key skills that they needed to move on to an alternative career or to move up their chosen career structure. I know that students took time off work to attend special study periods and even to do their exams, because not all employers recognise the importance of their employees voluntarily taking up part-time evening class opportunities in education and are not even willing to give them time off for exams. That is an important point. When I took my A-level exams, I had to take annual leave. As a Government, we should think about that issue.
	Many adults who take night classes will leave work at 5 o'clock or half-past 5 and will come straight into college without a break. They do not even have a chance for an evening meal. They are in the classroom 10 minutes before the class is ready to start because they are so keen to soak up and absorb what is on offer. One of the most inspirational periods of my life and one of the most rewarding aspects of my work as an FE tutor involved delivering adult education. I took a bunch of students down to Stratford to see "The Merchant of Venice". Those adults had never been to the theatre before. They had never been to the theatre in Sheffield, never mind Stratford-upon-Avon. Can Members imagine how rewarding it is to see adults from working-class communities such as Wath on Dearne—the sons and daughters of coal miners—going down to Stratford and not only enjoying "The Merchant of Venice", but appreciating it? The whole experience had the potential to transform their lives by providing them with other avenues and forms of fulfilment. That applies not just to future employment opportunities, but to how they enjoy their lives and what they make of that rich experience.

Angela Smith: It is entirely true that what we in the trade call small, bite-sized chunks of learning can play a valuable part in building adult returnees' confidence and capacity so that they can move on to the more formal accredited learning opportunities that FE offers. I understand that the Government's direction has always been that colleges and other training providers should be encouraged to make such bite-sized chunks of education available as part of a package of progression for individuals from the moment they walk through the door of a learning centre so that they can go on to FE and then formal learning courses.
	FE at its best brings out the best. It brings out the full potential of young people and adults, whatever that potential might be. For example, the expectation and culture of maturity associated with FE, through which young people are expected to take responsibility for their behaviour and learning, brings on a 16-year-old who has just left school as an individual more than anything else. There is no patronising in further education, or any sense of drilling things into people. Those in further education are independent learners. Many young people find independent learning valuable and are natural independent learners who are capable of finding their way through the material and concepts on offer. We underestimate the extent to which young people learn in a variety of ways. The best can be brought out of young people by further education, rather than school, because it offers an alternative culture and a different approach to delivering education and learning. It thus creates incentives and motivates people.
	I hope that I can entertain the Chamber with another anecdote about my A-level days at night school. In my third year, when I was studying for the Bernard Crick A-level in government and politics, we suffered a serious misfortune in that our lecturer was suspended from his post two or three months before our exams. I will not go into the details of the suspension, but we thought that the reasons were pretty paltry. Everyone in the night class got together to visit local dignitaries and politicians and to make a fuss. We secured an offer from a local barrister—I pay tribute to him; he was a Liberal Democrat candidate in the local elections—to the effect that we could set up a Saturday school in the premises of his bridge club so that we could continue our studies with our tutor, in addition to attending the classes at the college.
	The students on my course were ready to give such a commitment to their learning. They gave up their Saturday mornings to turn up at the local bridge club and set out their materials on a series of card tables so that they could make the most of the opportunities that were provided for them. We did that all the way through to June and even took a week's annual leave so that we could have a study school so we could catch up following the disruption that we had suffered. The group's results were absolutely stupendous. I think that an overwhelming number of us got grade As and secured our places at university because of the commitment that we gave to our education and course. To this day, I remain proud of what we did. We took control of our destiny and learning and ensured that we got what we needed. Again, that is something that further education often cultivates.
	All that makes further education especially fit to meet the skills challenge, about which we have heard a great deal in this debate. FE develops the rounded and mature individuals for whom employees are looking. The stats have already been cited, but I will point them out again. We all know that Leitch has said that by 2020 we will need 40 per cent. of adults to be qualified at level 4 and above. However, it has not been mentioned that we will need 95 per cent. of adults to achieve the basic skills of functional literacy and numeracy, and that more than 90 per cent. of adults will need to be qualified at level 2, at least. I congratulate the Government on making it clear that FE provision up to level 2 will be free of charge. That represents a significant contribution towards making sure that we deliver the skilled workers this country requires and the skills we need to compete in a global economy.
	Although this is often said, it is worth repeating: our country can survive in the global economy and make the most of the opportunities created by the opening up of markets in China and India only if it meets the skills challenge. The only way to do that will be to work at the high-value end of the employment, job-creation and manufacturing markets.
	In my city and constituency, Corus is dedicated to the high-value end of the steel castings market. Corus is now under the ownership of Tata, so I suppose that I should call it that, but old habits die hard. The company has told me that it does not think it could consider moving the Stocksbridge plant, which is in my constituency, abroad because the skills that are needed to produce such sophisticated engineering products are available only in such cities as Sheffield. We have to ensure that things stay that way and that further education, higher education and our schools are geared up to continue to deliver such very skilled workers for good, well-paid jobs that are highly satisfactory and rewarding.
	Rollem Patent Products, which is in Ecclesfield, is less well known than Corus. It is dedicated to the production of bespoke engineering products, which are special solutions requested by the customers it attracts. The firm exports all the way across the world, to China and south America.
	Most of Ronseal's products are manufactured in my constituency, and they really do what it says on the tin. It is a chemical engineering company that makes an incredible contribution to the wealth of my constituency, which is higher than average for Britain as a whole. The managing director of Ronseal has told me that the quality of the local provision in our schools and further education college is critical to the future success of the company. We must meet that challenge.
	In Sheffield we also have the teaching hospitals and the medical expertise not just of the doctors and nurses, but of the technicians and researchers. We have growing expertise in sports and leisure, and Sheffield is the world climbing and mountaineering centre. We have an engineering company called Gripple which manufacturers the equipment used by our mountaineers. That is a neat example of engineering and sport coming together. For a city like Sheffield, the challenge is to ensure that Gripple, the sports and leisure facilities, the teaching hospitals and the universities continue to get the excellent, highly skilled staff that they need, and the Bill will contribute towards that. It is the natural vehicle to deliver the skilled workers we need.
	As we have heard, there are 4 million students in further education colleges, the vast majority of whom are adults studying part-time. That point is often overlooked. There are more 16 to 18-year-olds in colleges than in school sixth forms. Colleges deliver more than 800,000 vocational qualifications every year and provide 44 per cent. of entrants to higher education. They deliver 11 per cent. of higher education provision. They are already proven deliverers of higher education opportunities. Nearly 300,000 college students are over 60. That is a tribute to the capacity of human beings to study at every stage of life. The importance of further education is illustrated by those facts. FE has taken on the lion's share of post-16 education delivery, and long may that continue.
	I welcome the proposals in the Bill to restructure the Learning and Skills Council, particularly the requirement that the new learning and skills councils consult more closely with employers. They should also consult more with schools, parents and young people. We need a more co-ordinated strategic approach to what is delivered in further education if FE is to move from its excellent base to meet the challenges that the Bill requires of it.
	I would welcome the Minister's comments on how local learning and skills councils are responding to the needs of employers. We feel the need to move forward, but how far? In my view, based on the experience of Sheffield, we need to move some way. We have had serious engagement with employers in Sheffield, but I still do not think that we have forged the important links with employers that will change FE and make it more responsive to their needs. However, we will at some stage have to say to employers "Put up or shut up", because they too must engage seriously with the system and demonstrate their commitment, not necessarily always in terms of resource but in terms of expertise to ensure that FE is able to deliver what employers say they need.

Brian Binley: I have been listening intently to the hon. Lady, from whom we have heard sound common sense, as I would expect from someone who comes from Sheffield. The responsibility of employers is part of the equation that the Bill does not cover. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is employers' responsibility to be come much more involved and that employing organisations should play an active role in achieving that objective?

Angela Smith: Whether there is a sixth-form college or sixth forms attached to a range of schools is an open question. My key point is that we need choice for young people. I do not believe that many parts of the country—particularly to the north of my city, in Sheffield, Hillsborough—have that choice at that moment. When most young people reach 14 or 15, they either have a clear preference for a more independent learning environment in going on to their level 3 or even level 2 courses at 16, or they require the more pastoral, protected environment of a sixth form. It is very important that we do not close down the ability to choose one of those very different learning environments. Many young people would benefit from a mix of both; those who enjoy the pastoral environment offered by a sixth form may also enjoy receiving some of their provision at the local FE college.
	The key point is the individual learner. The learner has to come first in this post-16 world. At the moment, the learner does not always come first, because they do not have the choice of institutions necessary to progress their studies at 16. Partly as a result of incorporation, FE colleges have become much more focused on survival and finances, and on protecting their own market, to the extent that they will put pressure on the local learning and skills council to ensure that no new sixth forms open in their neighbourhoods. That issue must be resolved. I welcome the proposals in the Bill to place a duty on the learning and skills councils to rise above the pressures put upon them not to deliver more choices in post-16 education and to take notice of what parents and learners want, rather than of what local vested interests may want or require. There is nothing wrong with opening up opportunities for people at 16. This is not about being more competitive in terms of the different courses available in different colleges and schools; it is about saying that local people need variety and choice if they are to achieve their full potential. I feel very strongly that the LSC needs to take a more strategic view on those matters, and it needs to learn to put the learner first.
	One of the more positive developments in the Bill is on foundation degrees. So far, mention has not been made of the fact that 61,000 students were provisionally on HE-funded foundation degree courses at the beginning of this academic year. The number of entrants has grown more than eightfold between 2001-02 and the current academic year. That in itself is testimony to the success of foundation degrees, which are delivered and assessed by further education but validated by universities. The success of the foundation degree over five or six years means that we can trust further education to not only deliver and assess foundation degrees but validate them as well. If it is good enough to do the one, we should have confidence that it can do the other.
	If higher education has a problem with the quality standards applied to the validation by further education, let us by all means put the safeguards in place that have been demanded by the other place. However, if HE is so doubtful of the standard, why is it not questioning the quality of the delivery of foundation degrees in our FE institutions? I am not aware that that is the case. I would welcome the Minister's comments on that.
	Another important point is that the delivery of foundation degrees in FE institutions means that we are opening up education opportunities at level 4 for a range of people who could not have accessed those opportunities had we kept them enclosed within an HE system. I live in a city with two first-class universities; I am lucky in that respect. But the town in which I was born and bred has no HE institution; many parts of this country do not have HE institutions. We have to deliver HE opportunities in a range of locations and contexts if we are to meet the skills challenge and develop the potential of all adults and young people.
	The majority of people on foundation degrees are part-time learners; they work; they are single parents; they are mature students. Most importantly, they are often from working-class families. A far higher proportion of those enrolled on such courses are from working class backgrounds than in any traditional HE institution. The importance of that cannot be underestimated. If we are to meet the skills needs of the nation, we need to be responsive and flexible and maximise participation.
	Provision must be of a high quality. Another important provision is the Bill's requirement that the principal of a college must have a leadership qualification. That is a long overdue measure and is already in place in our schools; it was introduced by the Government for head teachers and has been a great success. If we are to value FE and give it parity with school education, we must recognise that principals need to be as highly qualified and as expert in delivering leadership to their institutions as any head in any school. The leadership of the FE college is critical to whether the ethos, quality and consistency are right in terms of delivering standards. FE can occasionally be found wanting in that respect, just as schools can be, and the key to resolving the problem has to be the leadership of the college or school. I very much welcome that measure.
	I want to draw attention to what has been called mission drift. Mention was made of this in the other place as a result of the power to award foundation degrees and so on. I entirely disagree with that accusation. In my view, the mission of FE is to play a crucial role in delivering the potential of all our young people and of people of all ages who need to access FE's facilities and opportunities. It is about lifelong learning and meeting the skills challenge. That is the mission of our FE colleges and the Bill ought to be approved. I look forward to it going into Committee, where I hope that the clauses taken out in the other place will be reinstated.

Brian Binley: First, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) whose speech was long but very thoughtful. I was particularly grateful to hear of the concerns for the over-60s. That made me feel wanted and that I was still useful to society.
	I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks about employers and their involvement in the process, because one of the weaknesses of the Bill is their lack of involvement. The Bill talks at length about consultation, but not enough about involvement; there is a sizeable difference there about which I want to speak.
	Before I do, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell). He is my neighbour and it was particularly good to hear his very informed comments on this debate. I particularly liked what he had to say about my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), because I have had the good fortune to be present at two of his important speeches on this subject. I know that members of the further education profession enormously appreciated his contributions, which were vital to the discussion.
	I declare an interest, which is relatively straightforward and people know of it; I am a business man from a business background. I have built up two companies that I am delighted to say are successful and employ reasonable numbers of people. That is reasonably well known in this place but I am not sure that it is as well known that both of those businesses rely totally upon new entrants with relatively high degrees of numeracy and literacy, yet both suffer from skills shortages in those subjects. I recognise that we live in an age where employment is high—that needs to be taken into account— but it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit people with the basic skills levels that those two businesses need.
	I am equally pleased to say that both are in the SME sector, which I believe is the most vital sector to Britain's future. We are in the middle of a 10-year cycle, in which we are seeing sizeable changes to employment in this country. It has been said on a number of occasions that plcs in the UK as a sector will be shedding 1.5 million jobs in that 10-year period. As a business man from the SME sector, I am delighted to say that we would be in serious trouble were it not for that sector, which is expected to add 2 million jobs over the same period. We are discussing a sector that is vital to Britain's future.
	Within those figures, we need to set the background to the challenge that Britain faces as a commercial and industrial nation, which is the growing and potentially overwhelming competitive challenge over the next 30 years from emerging countries. I do not need to tell the Minister that it has been projected that India and China alone will control 60 per cent. of global trade by 2050. Bearing in mind the figures that I have quoted, Britain's future depends on the strengths of the SMEs. The sector is important in terms of not only job growth, but creativity—much of the creativity of British industry and commerce emerges from it, and it creates much of our commercial and industrial well-being.
	SMEs are massively important in terms of supply chains to plcs. For example, Airbus directly employs 13,000 people, but it has been reckoned that there are a further 135,000 jobs in the supply chain that keeps it going. That means many hundreds of SMEs working together in a team scenario to create Airbus's success in this country at this moment. It is vital that we understand that background before we discuss the role of further education in skills training.
	If we are to compete, we must be a highly skilled, high-tech nation that does not directly compete with third-world manufacturing. The old days are gone, and we need to recognise that and to build the impact of that statement into our plans for the future. We need a knowledge-based economy that matches that of the USA, Germany and other advanced nations, if we are to have any place at all. An advanced economy needs advanced skills. That is a truism almost too simple to need repeating, but it is vital that we do. The alternative to becoming an advanced economy based on an advanced skills set is to continue the drift down the competitive ladder, and I know that the Minister does not want that particular drift to occur for our children and grandchildren.
	Today, we are discussing the long term, and I want to turn my attention to skills training for the long-term, starting with the basic areas. Let us consider the Government's record in that respect over the past 10 years. The Government say that they have increased spending on education, which is, of course, completely true, but it does not highlight the fact that one in six adults do not have the literacy skills expected of 11-year-olds. That is not directly the fault of this Government—my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry has said that Opposition Members have the habit of saying that everything bad started in 1997 and that everything good started before that point, which is nonsense and does not take us any further forward. More importantly, more than half of adults do not have the levels of numeracy expected of 11-year-olds, which underlines the point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough about the importance of not only our basic educational structures, but the second-chance structures, which she discussed so eloquently.
	The figures show that each year around 120,000 11-year-olds leave primary school unable to read or write properly. That figure is not from a Conservative pamphlet—it is from  The Independent. We are not creating the basic skills that we require for an advanced economy. The Government have told us that more money is being spent on apprentices, of whom we have more than 250,000 in England alone. Unfortunately, however, 50 per cent. of them did not complete their full programme in 2005-06. Indeed, the take-up of advanced apprenticeships has now fallen to below the 1997 level. I do not say that to attack the Minister and the Government; I say it because it should concern us all. We need to get the issue right irrespective of party politics, because, as I have said, it is vital for the children and grandchildren who will follow us and whom we are thinking about today.
	The fact is that we are not creating the necessary vocational skills for an advanced economy. The Government have told us about the money that they have spent on the youth employment programme, which is true, but the number of 16 to 18-year-olds not in education, employment or training—the so-called NEETs, who have been referred to on a number of occasions—has risen by 27 per cent. since 1997. None of us wants to live in a society where inactivity among the young is increasing rather than decreasing. The Government have told us that funding for FE colleges has increased, which is also true. However, only 14 per cent. of British employees have intermediate level vocational qualifications compared with, for instance, 46 per cent. in Germany.
	I hope that that has set the background to the task that we all face in this place. The previous Government, this Government and Governments to come share responsibility for ensuring that the figures that I have quoted in response to the Government's spending statements are improved dramatically and quickly, if we are to face the global challenge that I explained earlier.
	We need to recognise that money is not everything. It is not enough simply to identify a problem, allocate money, create objectives, set targets and think that the problem has been solved. If life were as simple as that, we would all believe that we could solve the problem in a couple of hours and go for a drink before half-past 9. In many respects, a decision made within a set of parameters is not absolutely vital. What is vital is how one manages, monitors, assesses and polices once a decision has been made within a given framework.
	We have seen too many failures of management to ignore the importance of management within the context of further education. The Government need to recognise that we need to manage FE better, a point which a number of hon. Members have made today. The Government need to monitor and police more effectively; they need to evaluate and assess more effectively; and they need to fine-tune and be more flexible. Whatever system they decide to implement, they need to take account of management qualities, which are so important to the outcome of decisions made in this House.
	If we did that consistently, we would not need continually to reorganise. This is the fourth time that the Government have restructured the skills network since they came to power. I am sure that they do not want to be in that position or to have had unnecessarily to spend so much money on restructuring. We want to get it right and to do so by adopting management practices of the kind that I outlined. The fact that the Bill does not mention those requirements is a sadness and something that the Government need to think about if they hope to get FE right on this occasion. They need to recognise that, as noted by the British Chambers of Commerce, we have a massive skills crisis. I am not saying that we did not have such a crisis 10 years ago or that the previous Government handled the matter with all the necessary skill and success—they certainly did not. However, we face the problem now. It is vital that we eradicate complacency and ensure that this legislation is not yet again seen as a missed opportunity in 18 months' time.
	Let me turn to what I consider to be the most important oversight in the Bill—its undervaluing of the potential role of business managers, especially those from the SME sector and especially with regard to their involvement in the nation's skills training programme. We can talk about consulting management, but I want to go much further, as, in truth, does the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough, who wants more involvement from business. She agreed with me when I asked her about placing responsibility on businesses' heads, and I was delighted to hear it. Business is not accepting its responsibility in this area of our nation's life as much as it should. Sadly, the Bill centralises skills training and removes controls over it from the local arena. It fails to recognise that SMEs operate locally, not nationally, unlike plcs. Transferring responsibility from local skills councils to regional councils makes it harder for SMEs to be involved in skills planning, skills delivery or the creation of training programmes.
	SMEs have a massive role to play not only in the provision of skills training but as benefactors of the skills that are provided. The Minister should be aware of the results of a British Chambers of Commerce survey that touches on the issue of skills for industry and commerce. I want to cite a few of its findings. It says that more than 55 per cent. of SMEs find it more difficult to find skilled staff than they did five years ago. That is partly the result of an economy that has less unemployment than 20 or 30 years ago, but it is still an indictment of our further education and skills training programme. There is immense support for training from the SME sector: more than 80 per cent. of SMEs spend £100 or more per annum per employee on external skills training, and 50 per cent. spend £250 or more per annum per employee. That is a sizeable amount of money, taken in the round, and it should be used more effectively. More than 75 per cent. of SMEs spend time identifying training needs for their staff. More than 60 per cent. evaluate the effectiveness of training that they have paid for. Most said that the main barrier to training was the lack of financial resource and the absence of staff involved in training. I welcome the Government's promise to pay up to the level 2 stage to make it free. Only 3.8 per cent. of SMEs said that training was not a priority. That massive set of facts shows that SMEs are committed to training and that they spend significantly on it but have limited resources to go further. They are ready, willing and able to help to create a trained, skilled work force and a knowledge-based, advanced economy.
	As to whether colleges of further education are successful at working with business, 80 per cent. of businesses surveyed used independent advisers. One said:
	"we tend to choose training providers that have a particular specialist skill, or are recommended or with whom we already have an established relationship".
	Sadly, only 20 per cent. of SMEs use FE colleges. That suggests a sizeable breakdown in communication somewhere, if not all on one side, which must be put right. I recognise that some of the other 80 per cent. will be in receipt of Government funding, but the figures make it clear that the situation is ad hoc and there is no real assessment of effectiveness. We cannot afford to put up with that in view of the importance of skills training in the challenges that this country faces. The numbers achieving level 3 qualifications dropped from 42,000 in 2000 to 28,000 in 2006. That further underlines the fact that we are missing out in that crucial area of activity.
	As a business man, I welcome train to gain—it is a good package and a good product—but only 5.8 per cent. of SMEs have taken part in it. I recognise that it is new; it has been rolled out for only a little under a year. Of those that did take part, however, 87 per cent. were satisfied or very satisfied with the product, so it is worth while. However, despite considerable advertising, 67 per cent. of the sector was unaware of its existence. There is a problem in relation to marketing correctly, communicating and connecting. As regards skills councils, 68 per cent. of SMEs were unaware of councils that represent them in their sector, and only 16.7 per cent. had had any contact from a skills council. Am I making my point, Mr. Deputy Speaker? I can see that I might be boring you now. There is a massive breakdown in the connection between Government training schemes and the SME sector and I fear that the Bill does not pay enough attention to that. We can talk about structures or money, but unless we talk about getting people together we will continue to fail.
	Let me make some suggestions that the Government might consider in Committee and before Third Reading. We should face the problems head on by creating structures that allow vocational and skills training to focus much more on the needs of the world of work. That means greater involvement of SME managers locally in creating such processes.
	Vocational and skills training should be workplace driven and local business needs should motivate and direct local vocational programmes. If we do not get together, that cannot happen. It will not happen if we do not communicate or involve business enough, and if business does not accept its responsibilities enough.
	We must simplify the processes that we create and concentrate on the need to involve quality business management from across the business sector. If that requires sizeable outreach, so be it. Outreach must be designed by business managers for business managers and the emphasis must be on benefits, not features. The Government are for ever selling features but we need to emphasise benefits. Any salesman of note will say that one never sells on the basis of features—one sells on the basis of benefits.
	Training programmes that business managers and educationists create jointly must fulfil local needs, and learning and skills councils must be prepared to deliver the programmes in the workplace if necessary. Many SMEs and small businesses cannot reach out in the way in which we would like. Again, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough made the point that, in many areas—including important industrial areas—people cannot get to a centre of skills training. We must reach out to them.
	All too often, ill-designed packages have been created and delivered away from the workplace and are distant from the ethos and culture of the working environment. That applies not only to new products and service sectors but many of our traditional, locally based manufacturing businesses, which have contracted in the past 30 years but continue to represent an important part of local activity.
	In my town of Northampton, we have shoemakers of international repute. You will forgive me for advertising in this place, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but Church's and Crockett and Jones make wonderful products. However, 30 years ago, they had a sizeable pool of experienced craftsmen on which to draw. Whenever they advertised, they had many responses. That pool has shrunk because the industry has shrunk, yet they tell me that, when they ask for on-site training, which they have to do nowadays, there seems be no interest from our colleges of further education or other Government skills bodies. They tell me that there is little understanding of their problem.
	We cannot afford another missed opportunity to deal with a massive problem, the solution of which is vital to the future of our nation. I therefore genuinely urge the Minister for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning and the Government to reconsider the Bill seriously in the light of involving business managers in creating and delivering training locally for local business.
	We all know that time is running out if we are to meet the challenge of globalisation. Action is urgently needed. We can make more of the Bill and I hope that the Minister will pay attention to that plea and perhaps take action in Committee so that we can proceed more confidently with skills training.

Kelvin Hopkins: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley). I reassure him that whatever he says is not boring and I was most interested in his comments. I shall remember some of his points, and I am especially concerned about his reference to being unable to recruit staff with sufficient literacy and numeracy skills for his companies. That problem bedevils our country. Another skill that we do not have in sufficient quantity in Britain is oracy—a new word, meaning the ability to express oneself orally. On the continent of Europe, it is commonplace for working people to speak another language as well as their own, whereas we have difficulty in commanding only our own language. We should worry about that, too.
	I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak about the Bill, which is positive, and I welcome that. However, we must go much further. I am alarmed by the state of skills in Britain. The hon. Member for Northampton, South spoke about skills being lost. If we lose skills in specific industries, we lose the industries and we can never regain them because the skills have gone. Many countries that try to develop cannot do that because they do not have the necessary skills. Rebuilding skills from scratch is difficult—much more difficult than retaining skills and perpetuating them in future generations.
	Further education is the most vital sector of Britain's education and training provision. It has been frequently neglected in the past. The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) said that officials often dismissed further education or did not take it seriously. He put it very amusingly. I believe that the reason is that officials have no experience of further education. They typically go from a grammar school or a public school to Oxbridge or some other elevated university and never come into contact with further education, which is more vital now than many elite universities. They are splendid, do well and we welcome their presence but we need further education much more. It is not properly valued. That is partly because of lack of experience of it and knowledge about it, but also because of a sort of elitism.
	Those from my generation and previous generations who left school at 16, 15 or even 14 never went near college. No one will win an election by championing FE; nevertheless, it is vital to do much more for it. It is a truly massive sector with an enormous spread of activities, from A-level mathematics to bricklaying to basket weaving. It covers almost every activity that one can imagine. Its breadth means that it is difficult to focus on it. We know what schools and universities do, but further education is much more difficult to grasp. However, we must raise it in the public consciousness and, indeed, here to ensure that we take it seriously in future.
	I have a personal interest because, 35 years ago, I was a lecturer in further education when I taught A-levels. It was interesting, but more interesting for me were the day-release students to whom I taught liberal studies. Teaching resentful, alienated young people on a Friday afternoon and trying to get them interested in politics was not always easy. However, I started to understand some of the problems with the education system and our society.
	I also taught highly motivated adults at evening class. That is another important component of further education that we forget. We have not done very well by adult students in recent years. I have criticised colleagues on the Front Bench for squeezing the adult education budget, especially the non-vocational budget, to focus on young people. We must ensure that young people are skilled and have the qualifications to do the jobs of the future, but, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the beginning of the debate, millions of adults do not have the skills now and they need to be trained and retrained. When manufacturing companies closed down in my constituency, many middle-aged people were asked to do mathematics tests and burst into tears because they could not do them. We have a big job to retrain and re-educate our adults in the most sympathetic and supportive way. Many studies have been undertaken of companies in America that trained their staff in mathematics and language. They show that the training has made staff not only better workers but happier. It raises workers' morale. Motorola in Detroit was one such company that improved the quality of the work force, made everybody happier and also made the company more productive. Focusing on adult workers is therefore very important.
	Not only did I use to teach in FE, but I went back to the same college some years later to teach part-time. I have to say—this is a criticism of Opposition Members; I hope that they will forgive me for raising it—that when I taught in FE 35 years ago, morale was high. Teaching staff did well and felt good about their students. When I went back to the same college 22 years later, I found that they felt much less happy. Morale was much lower, and they told me so. When I taught a long time ago, we typically had better pay and conditions than teachers in schools. When I went back, pay and conditions were much lower than those in schools and understandably staff felt pretty bad about it. Other factors had also entered into their lives, which made them feel less happy. We must ensure that the staff and people who work in FE have high morale, and feel good about their work and valued.
	I have two absolutely first-class colleges in the FE sector in my constituency. I describe them as first class because they genuinely are. Barnfield college was the first ever general FE college to be given beacon status and regularly gets a grade 1 in inspections. I spoke to the principal earlier today about the Bill. We also have the Luton sixth form college, which also regularly gets grade 1 inspections and has beacon status. It does a superb job and has improved remarkably in recent years. Both colleges have a high proportion of students from ethnic minorities. In the Luton sixth form college, 60 per cent. of students are from non-white ethnic minorities, and the college does a fantastic job sending its students off to a whole range of universities—from Oxbridge to our own local university of Bedfordshire.
	Twenty years ago, I was chair of the governors of what is now the university of Bedfordshire and was then the Luton college of higher education. It was in the local government sector, but when I was chair we moved into the polytechnic sector and eventually towards university status. I was not thanked by some of my political colleagues when that happened, because it was Conservative legislation that got us into the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council. However, it worked and we became a university.
	Both the beacon status FE college and the university are rather worried about what is going to happen with degrees. In fact, I have had communications from all three of our college principals and vice-chancellors to ensure that I have their viewpoints. I shall pass on their written comments to Ministers to ensure that they are properly aware of all their concerns about FE colleges being able to award their own degrees. I will support the Government, but they should take account of the concerns of the modern universities, one of which is the university of Bedfordshire.
	FE colleges do well. As has been mentioned, however, we must focus on the problem not of elites and highly skilled but of NEETs—those not in education, employment or training. My Luton constituency has very large numbers of NEETs, despite the great lengths to which we have gone to improve our schools, and despite our first-class colleges and our relatively high employment compared with other parts of the country. There are large numbers of these young people, but a couple of weeks ago I found out, most astonishingly, that we do not even know who they are. What we must do first is track the NEETs.
	If we do not address this serious problem now, we will in future have a permanent under-class of people with no skills and no jobs, living a relatively poor street life. We cannot contemplate that. We have to deal with that now, and we can start by finding out and tracking these people, then doing something to bring them back into the mainstream of economic life through education and training. We have to identify these people properly. They are not on our radar at the moment and they ought to be. It is no good just talking about them; we have to do something about them.
	The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development drew attention a little while ago to the enormous gulf between the best and worst in Britain's education and training. According to the OECD, in our top 10 per cent. we have some of the best and most academically capable people in the world. Our best universities compare with the best elsewhere, but equally, at the bottom end, we have some of the worst educated and most poorly trained people of all. The top 10 per cent. are brilliant; the bottom 10 per cent. are appalling; and the bottom half are not very good. That is where our problem has been. For generations we have been concerned about grammar schools, universities, whether we should reform A-levels and have international baccalaureates and so forth, but we have not faced up to the real problem, which is the lower half, the lower third and the bottom 10 per cent.
	A report by Claus, now Lord Moser six or seven years ago drew attention to the fact—as did the hon. Member for Northampton, South—that 20 per cent. of people were functionally illiterate and 50 per cent. were functionally innumerate. I have said this before in the Chamber: 50 per cent. of the population do not know what 50 per cent. means. That is astonishing. We take it for granted that all these things are understood, but they are not. We expect people to fill forms in, to understand their pay and handle numbers. The days have gone when people used almost to boast by saying, "I can't do mathematics", as if it were a badge of honour. Now people realise that not being able to do simple mathematics or simple computation is not a badge of honour, but a disability. We should address it in those terms and do something about it—not to make people feel ashamed, but to help them so that they can do simple computation in future, without relying on others. We have all seen the advertisements of fathers—indeed, mothers too—who cannot help their children at school, and we want to overcome that.
	I have also worked for a trade union and written quite a lot about economics, and time and again I have come across skill and education problems. A great deal of research was done back in the late 1980s by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Sig Prais and, indeed, Claus Moser—and some of the studies were quite astonishing. They compared Britain with the continent of Europe. I remember one study of construction apprentices. They took 30 such apprentices from Britain and 30 comparable apprentices from France. They provided a simple mathematics test and found that all the French youngsters could do all the sums in the test, while none of the British youngsters could do any of them in the same test. Frankly, that was frightening. Many other comparable studies were carried out.
	Hon. Members may recall the television documentaries that were made on the basis of Sig Prais's research—comparing German manufacturers with British manufacturers, for example, and the skills found on the shop floor. We saw German manufacturers who took a bespoke kitchen plan from England in English, read it, measured everything, drew it up and built the kitchen, which was packed away and sent off to Britain. In Britain, the staff on the shop floor could never have read a foreign language, so the design had to be done by the engineers upstairs. The chaps on the shop floor just cut on the basis of what they were instructed to do. The skill levels were enormously different. We have failed in manufacturing partly because of that lack of skill and lack of attention to raising those levels.
	Significantly, we have seen this week, in spite of the fact that the euro has been a problem for the German economy, that Germany still has a gigantic trade surplus in manufactures, contrasting with our massive trade deficit in manufactures. In my constituency, tens of thousands of jobs in manufacturing have gone. We have seen jobs exported not to the third world, but in many cases to the continent of Europe or even to America. We have not retained our skill base, and we have not retained our manufacturing. Quite frankly, Britain cannot live with a massive trade deficit for ever. That will have to be dealt with at some point; it will unravel. We must start from the bottom by educating people in the skills that are needed in the modern world. That means addressing not just the people who will be lawyers, doctors or even, dare one say it, Members of the House of Commons, but those who work on the shop floor, ensuring that their skills are sufficient.
	There are many useful measures in the Bill. I have raised my concerns about clause 17 with my hon. Friend the Minister personally, and he gave me some comfort by saying that colleges would be given the right to award their own degrees only if they met certain strict criteria. That is only right. Indeed, the principal of Barnfield college suggested to me today that one way of dealing with this matter would be to stipulate that only colleges with beacon status would be considered. That would be one possibility. Of course, his college has beacon status, so he is not so concerned, but other colleges might be more concerned. Before we introduce such measures, however, we should apply strict criteria to ensure that the process is well planned and will not damage other institutions.
	I look forward to a more planned approach to training and skills education in general in Britain. I am not one of those who believes in the Maoist dictum, "Let a thousand flowers bloom". I am sure that we all remember that Chairman Mao established a kind of competitive environment in which a thousand flowers were to bloom. It destroyed the Chinese economy, and it took the pragmatic planner, Deng Xiao Ping, to put things right after Mao had destroyed almost everything. We need to plan more and to look at these issues in pragmatic terms, rather than simply leaving them to the market. I might be out of tune with some of my colleagues on this matter, especially those in another place, but I still believe that a greater degree of planning for this provision is better.
	I also want to talk about sixth-form colleges, which are now in the FE sector. They deal with the more skilled end of education, in preparing students for university and so on. As I have said, Luton sixth-form college is a first-class institution. I have been a governor there for some 17 years, and for the 14 years since incorporation. I have not only taught in further education, but seen what is being done today. The quality of education at Luton sixth-form college is far and away better than anything that I saw or undertook when I was in further education.
	We need to ensure that sixth-form colleges are preserved. I am convinced that they are the jewels in our educational crown. I recently asked a parliamentary question about A-level points awards for different sizes of sixth forms, and I was grateful to the Minister for his answer. There is a simple correlation: the larger the sixth-form institution, the better the performance. That is standard across the country. The largest sixth forms occur in sixth-form colleges.
	Luton sixth-form college has nearly 2,000 students, and 45 different A-level courses. Every student can study for a tailor-made mix of A-levels, and other courses as well. There are a variety of teachers teaching the same subject, so that they reinforce each other. While there is not exactly competition between them, if one teacher is not quite up to it, there are others who will pick up the pieces. In a small school sixth form, the students have to rely on one teacher per subject, and that teacher might not be particularly good. That teacher might also have to teach other subjects as secondary subjects, which would definitely not be in their chosen field. That sort of thing happens in schools, but not in sixth-form colleges. There, all teachers are geared to teaching their primary subject, and at Luton they certainly do a first-class job.
	Sixth-form colleges also allow the possibility of optimum class sizes. There is plenty of research to show that the optimum sizes are typically in the upper teens, so a class with between 15 and 24 students would be the right size for a good class. When classes are very small or very large, they become less effective. In a sixth-form college, the solution is simple: split the class in half and have two parallel classes. That is not a problem. We ought to promote more sixth-form colleges and ensure that we protect those that we have.
	At a recent conference, a sixth-form college principal said that, had sixth-form colleges stayed within local education authorities rather than going into the FE sector, we would now have at least 100 more of them. I am not suggesting that we should go back down that route, however. No local education is going to set up a sixth-form college now, because that would result in their giving away their school sixth forms. That would not be reasonable, and councils and officials would never do it. However, the Government ought to think seriously about ways of creating more sixth-form colleges, particularly in urban areas like mine. They do a first-class job, and we ought to give that matter some serious thought.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: The Bill is important for moving on the agenda for the FE sector that was outlined in the Foster report and the further education White Paper. In particular, it helps to provide that clear focus for the FE sector to concentrate on qualifications that are skills-based and relate to the needs of the economy. It also helps businesses and individuals to respond to those needs. The Bill looks ahead to the fact that our FE sector needs to respond to changing technological and social imperatives by changing the types of qualifications that are available. Critically, it encourages the FE sector to work in partnership with other providers and businesses, and to develop and attract dynamic leaders.
	I disagree with hon. Members who said that the Bill has no relevance for the Leitch review. One of the targets that Leitch set for us was for more than 40 per cent. of adults to be qualified at level 4 and above by 2020, and he emphasised that we needed to do that to remain internationally competitive. Foundation degrees are, of course, level 4 qualifications and will be critical in helping us to skill our work force for the future.
	As other hon. Members said, key features of the Bill relate to the new structure and role for the learning and skills councils, new powers for FE colleges to award foundation degrees, and granting LSCs the power to intervene in failing or coasting colleges. It is important that LSCs are structured with a key regional role for overseeing post-16 education. In a dynamic economy, like the one that we are in, it is essential that skills providers can respond flexibly to the changing demands at a regional as well as a national level. On Friday, I was at the launch of the regional economic strategy for the north-east in my constituency in Durham. It was clear from both the action plan and the response from people who attended that we need to be careful to ensure that we provide the skills at a regional level that are needed for businesses in that region and that we can attend to skills shortages in the region, because they are not the same in every area of the country. It is very important that we give the LSCs that regional focus, so that they can attend not only to skills for the future but to current skills shortages.
	The LSCs have been given the role of encouraging greater choice in the delivery of post-16 education and promoting the personalisation of learning. We often equate that with something that needs to happen to under-fives and, more recently, in the secondary and primary sector, but it also needs to happen in FE so that young people and adults can build on their previous experience and learning. In addition, there has to be a greater employer and student focus. We should recognise that focusing LSCs at a regional level is an important advance.
	Clause 17 allows the Privy Council to grant further education institutions powers to award their own foundation degrees. That is a critical element of the Bill. We heard that about 60,000 students are enrolled in foundation degree courses, which are delivered in about 80 universities. Just over 2,000 courses are being run at the moment, with about 750 in the pipeline. As hon. Members said, that points to a successful qualification. However, it does not mean that we should not examine the degrees and see whether things can be done better.
	Giving the power to FE colleges to award their own foundation degrees has proved controversial in some sections of the education community, but it is an enormous step forward in terms of bringing foundation degrees back to the purpose for which they were originally intended. I dispute what the hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) said about how foundation degrees were formulated as a stepping stone to higher education. I think that they were formulated instead to be a higher education qualification that integrated both academic and work-based learning, and that they would be designed in partnership with employers. So they were designed initially to be a free-standing qualification, but one that was vocationally oriented.
	Providing that caveats are put in place—I shall discuss those later—to ensure that the quality of degrees is maintained, FE colleges with a sound track record of delivering higher education should be enabled to deliver foundation degrees with a strong skills dimension based on employer needs, especially as they now have to do that for level 2 provision onwards. That relates to what I said about defining the role of FE colleges much more clearly to be the sector that concentrates on skills-based education and vocational education.
	In support of the Bill, the British Chambers of Commerce pointed out that there is an urgent need to plug the skills gap in the UK work force. Enabling foundation degrees to concentrate more closely on that skills gap is an important way forward. There also needs to be a mechanism—we have not discussed this as much as we could have done—to ensure that colleges are flexible in responding to employer need and a changing skills demand. The current system of validating those degrees through universities does not always allow that degree of flexibility.
	I understand that universities have genuine concerns about losing much of their partnership work with FE colleges. They are also concerned about standards and the creation of a two-tier system. Hopefully, the measures set out in the draft criteria for foundation degree-awarding powers which were published when the Bill went through the other place will allay those concerns to a large extent. I note in particular the requirement that FE colleges must have four years' experience of delivering HE; that an application for foundation degree-awarding powers will not be considered unless the FE college has consulted its students; that clear advice is given to the Privy Council to grant foundation degree-awarding powers for an initial period of six years, hence introducing the probationary period; that proper inspections and audit arrangements are in place; and that a review period is applied. Those criteria put in the necessary safeguards that have been asked for by the university sector.
	Universities have done a good job already in validating the degrees and in delivering them in some cases. In my university career before I came into Parliament, I was responsible for validating a number of them. There were two problems in the validation process at the university level. As we have discussed, one was the fact that universities are academic institutions. It was often difficult to get academic staff in universities to look at the skills base of foundation degrees, rather than the academic content. The second problem was that universities often did not have the links with employers that would make foundation degrees sufficiently employer-focused. Although that has improved over time, there are still problems in relation to the close tie-in with the university sector.
	There is a stronger point to be made about the loss of partnership working in modern universities, but I hope that it can develop in other ways. Clearly foundation degree students will need progression routes to higher education, so it will still be necessary for the further education and higher education sectors to work together to ensure that the routes exist and that one builds on the other. As I have said, however, I think it important to establish foundation degrees as a qualification in their own right. They should not be seen simply as a stepping stone.
	We know that of those who complete their two-year courses, 35 per cent. go directly into employment, 27 per cent. opt for a combination of work and study, and 32 per cent. progress to further study, the aim of the vast majority being to complete an honours degree. That shows the necessity for further education colleges to provide advice for foundation degree students that includes employment options and work-based learning as well as progression to higher education. I hope that the Minister will tell us how that is to be achieved in practice.
	I have useful anecdotal evidence from my further education college, which is already an excellent provider of higher education. The principal tells me that many of those studying for foundation degrees wish to return to employment, or to return to it for a period before returning to obtain professional or managerial qualifications rather than honours degrees.
	Foundation degrees could also help to fulfil the Government's stated intention to widen access to higher education qualifications. Some 28 per cent. of foundation degree students come from areas of deprivation, 65 per cent. are over 21, and 48 per cent. study part-time. The degrees are important to the Government's aim of widening participation in higher education, and we should support them for that reason.

Jeremy Wright: I agree with those Members who have said that the Bill is a missed opportunity. The Leitch review and—to be fair to the Government—the White Paper that preceded the Bill were wide-ranging and, in their different ways, ambitious documents, but this Bill is not. It is not all bad, of course. There are provisions on consultation which I welcome, and I also welcome the freedoms that the Bill gives to colleges—as far as those freedoms go. The problem with those freedoms is that they are undermined by other parts of the Bill, especially measures—which have been discussed in detail—that might give the Learning and Skills Council the power to intervene in the running of colleges. We should wish to trust colleges to do the important job that we ask them to do.
	Many Members have talked about the role that we wish colleges to play, and all of them have recognised that they are crucial institutions that do good work. However, the Bill sends mixed messages to those colleges about how much we trust them to do that important work. On one hand we are considering allowing colleges to confer their own degrees, but we are also considering allowing the LSC to direct governors to behave in the ways that it thinks most appropriate, and even to dismiss the principals of colleges. It is one thing for the Secretary of State to do that; at least he or she is elected and democratically accountable to this House. However, the LSC—a non-elected, non-departmental body—does not have such democratic accountability. Given that, I am profoundly troubled by that proposal.
	There is another incongruous aspect of the Bill. The Secretary of State retains the power to issue guidance on how governing bodies should consult with learners—clause 20 deals with that. I welcome these provisions, but the LSC does not gain that responsibility. The Secretary of State retains it, yet learning and skills councils will have the power to set up, dissolve and potentially fire the management of further education colleges. That is odd.
	There is also a question to do with how much the exercise of those powers that might be transferred to the LSC will cost. The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) has made the point that there is the danger that there will be legal proceedings following the sacking of the manager, principal or chief executive of an FE college. I can say from experience that legal proceedings cost money. If those costs are no longer to be covered by the Secretary of State but instead are to be transferred to the LSC, it is important to recognise that it will be necessary to ascertain how those costs will be met. However, that is unclear.
	On the transfer of certain powers in respect of FE colleges, the explanatory notes state:
	"There will be no increased funding as a result of the provision in the Bill transferring powers of the Secretary of State to establish and dissolve further education corporations to the LSC. The LSC will incur certain additional costs in exercising the powers, but these costs are difficult to ascertain."
	Those costs might well be difficult to ascertain, but the costs of firing principals will be even more difficult to ascertain and will potentially be much larger. We have heard about the costs that the Government hope will be saved by this restructuring of learning and skills councils, but before we accept those savings as a given it is important that we talk about what costs might arise on the other side of the balance sheet.
	The Bill restructures the learning and skills councils in a way that I am unconvinced is either needed or desirable. On first inspection, it does not appear to me to be wholly sensible that the powers of the LSC should be transferred further away from learners and from employers, which is what the Government intend to do by transferring responsibility regionally instead of locally.
	What concerns me most is not the organisation of the LSC, but its direction and priorities. As has been discussed in the debate, we face a very definite problem: we are behind our competitors in work force skills, and in many respects we are falling further behind. In 2006, we were 18th out of 30 OECD countries in terms of the proportion of 25 to 64 year olds with skills at or above level 2, and the problem is getting worse. The amount of learners between the ages of 19 and 59 fell by 16 per cent. between 2004-05 and 2005-06. There is a further decline in enrolments for 2007. I want to address that problem in the remainder of my brief remarks.
	The LSC has focused primarily on those up to the age of 25, and everybody understands why it would wish to do that. It is important that that group is properly catered for and that provision is made for it, but in the new world of work the over-25s are just as important and they are not as well served. Part of the reason for that is the progression that everyone now needs to make in the course of their chosen profession. As many Members have said, progress in training must be continuous. We must make provision for ongoing training for everybody. It will not be possible for people to sit on their laurels and think that the skills that they learned at 16, 18 or 21 will see them through the rest of their career. Ongoing training and skilling is vital.
	There is, however, a problem in that we are developing something of a plateau at about the level 2 mark. It is difficult for many people with level 2 skills to go on to develop skills at level 3 and beyond. There is much good provision for level 2 skills and below, but far less good provision for skills above that level. It is as important that people are able to develop such skills because, as is already generally accepted, we neither can, nor would wish to, compete with the rest of the world on the basis of lower wages. We will have to—and should want to—compete with the rest of the world on the basis of higher skills. The higher skills required to enable us to do that will not stop at level 2; we will need still higher skills. If there is a problem with graduating from level 2 to level 3 and other intermediate level skill qualifications, that needs to be addressed, but the Bill fails to do that.
	It is also highly likely that anyone of my age or younger will not be able to expect that the profession, trade or career that they begin at 16, 18 or 21—or whatever age—will be the profession or trade that they will be working in when they retire. It is highly likely that all of us will have to accept having two, three or perhaps four changes of career in a working lifetime. Reskilling and retraining become vital for that reason, and of course the people in need of such retraining and reskilling will be well above the age of 25. The skills structure needs to be flexible enough to deal with that and, as the Leitch review says, it needs to be demand-led. It discusses individual learning accounts, and they seem to me to be the only way in which the system can be flexible enough to respond to such continuing and varied demands. Again, nothing in the Bill deals with that.
	It is right—and it is accepted in the White Paper and in the Leitch review—that we cannot wait to deal with those problems. They will not be resolved by dealing with the skills requirements of people under 25 because, as both documents observe, 70 per cent. of the working population in 2020, which is the target date for all that Government activity, has already left compulsory education, so it is too late for them. We have to make provision for them post-25.
	Finally, it is important not to forget in the course of this debate that further education is about more than simply work-related skills. It is important that we regard education as a lifelong experience, with merits not simply for gaining new skills for the workplace but gaining new experiences for life more generally. Further education can be a social experience; it can be a health-giving experience; it can be an enhancing experience in many different ways. We have lost sight of that because, in this debate and in others, we talk a great deal about the needs of people between the age of 14 and 25, and a little less, although we have still discussed it, about the needs of those who need to retrain in the working environment. Those who have been forgotten are people who engage in further education—I do not want to say "recreationally", because that is the wrong word—without a direct connection to employment. For those people, further education is important. For all of us, it should be important, because if we are going to persuade those who need to reskill for the good of our economy that education is a lifelong experience, and should be available to them, they need to see that we regard education as lifelong for everyone. I hope that in the course of this debate, we do not lose sight of those people, but it does not seem, either for them or for those who need for their own good and for the good of all of us to reskill later in life, that the Bill deals with their problems.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) referred to the Bill as a tidying-up exercise, and it may be so. The Secretary of State described it as an enabling Bill, but in my judgment it does not enable anywhere near enough. It does not enable us to deal with fundamental problems in our economy and the skills structure. Until we do so we will not be able to compete. I very much hope that in the course of our debate and the Bill's progress that the Government will either add what needs to be added or consider very shortly a further Bill that will deal with those problems.

Iain Wright: I have a lot to be thankful for as a result of my experience in further education. My time in Hartlepool sixth form college in the late 1980s and 90s, particularly the experience, commitment and enthusiasm of the staff by whom I was taught, opened up to me the possibilities that are available in the world. In retrospect, the level of commitment from the staff was astonishing in the face of Government indifference and a real-terms cut in FE sector funding in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. Despite that, the tutors and staff at the college were focused and professional. They gave me confidence and ignited the ambition that allowed me to go on to university and, ultimately, led to membership of the House. The dedication of the staff in the FE sector is second to none, and I am extremely pleased to pay tribute to them.
	For a relatively small town, Hartlepool has a remarkably diverse further education provision. Hartlepool sixth form college has an A-level pass rate of 99.7 per cent, and is going from strength to strength under principal Rick Wells. Hartlepool college of further education had an A-level pass rate of 100 per cent. last year and, under the strong leadership of Dave Waddington, is driving forward with passion the skills agenda in the town. We are blessed, too, to have a specialist art school in Cleveland college of art and design which, under the leadership of David Willshaw, understands the importance of its contribution to the British economy at a time when Britain is the design workshop of the world. Graduates of the college designed "Bob the Builder" and now head up the Jaguar X-type design team, although I do not necessarily think that it was the same people. A sixth form college is attached to the English Martyrs school, with a remarkably committed head teacher in Joe Hughes. The choice for learners in Hartlepool would be the envy of people in much larger towns and cities.
	I am pleased that there is broad consensus in the House about the fact that skills, and the need for our country's economy and work force to adapt to meet the challenges of globalisation, are a vital part of economic and education policy. Leitch mentioned that in his report, and many other hon. Members far more articulate than me have reiterated it, not least the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright), who preceded me. I agree with the Government's approach that the FE sector should be the engine of economic growth and social progress. I agree, too, with the sentiments of the recent White Paper and the Bill as to what a further education college's remit should be: it should improve employability and skills in its local area and contribute to economic growth and social inclusion to meet the demands of the modern economy.
	There is an acute need for Hartlepool to upskill its work force to compete in the regional, national and global economy, and to give every individual the tools to achieve his or her own ambition. There are significant challenges. The percentage of school leavers who stayed on in further education and training in Hartlepool is good at 88.1 per cent.—higher, in fact, than the regional and national averages. However, the Hartlepool figures reduce to well below the national average when the whole of the 16 to 19 age group is considered. That shows that there is a pressing need to retain learners in the FE sectors so that they can train and obtain appropriate skills beyond the age of 17.
	The infrastructure of the Hartlepool economy is dominated by the public sector, with a third of all jobs in the town being in the NHS and the local authority, and in the education sector. In view of the deprivation and ill health caused by years of neglect, that is not necessarily a bad thing, but it shows that we have a relatively undeveloped and small private sector. Its domination by a few large firms—certainly in my constituency, but also across the region—reduces the ability of Hartlepool and the north-east to be dynamic, diverse and more enterprising, and therefore more prosperous.
	There are skills gaps, in the region and in my constituency, in the financial services sector and the utilities sector. It is estimated that the Tees valley will require 30,000 additional jobs in the next decade in potentially high-value, added-process industries such as chemicals, science, engineering and manufacturing technologies, but at present we do not have the appropriate skills base to fill them.
	Low skills levels in Hartlepool, below the sub-regional and regional levels, are hindering our potential progress. In many ways, though, that scenario could only have been dreamed of even 20 or 30 years ago: then, we had the highly skilled workers, but we did not have the world markets or the Government to help them. Today, there is a chance that we will squander this once-in-a-generation opportunity if we do not match the potential with the skills in the work force, and the role of further education in that is crucial. The Bill is at its strongest and most forceful when it focuses on responding to employer demand and on allowing Britain and the regional economy to compete, but there is still a long way to go.
	The Government's aspiration is that 50 per cent. of all young people will go on to higher education. Nationally, the participation rate has reached 43 per cent., but only 24 per cent. of young people from the north-east enter higher education, and the figure among my constituents is even lower. Although the increase in the number of young people progressing to higher education is in line with the national average, we are starting from a much lower base—the result of immense cultural barriers.
	The key challenge is to raise aspiration, to show a proportion of young people in my constituency and elsewhere in the north-east what is achievable and possible. That is where the Bill needs to be looked at in a fresh way. It quite rightly places the onus on the FE sector to act as the catalyst of the national economy in the face of the pressures of globalisation. The consequence is that purchasing power in terms of the design, shaping and costing of the courses on offer in FE is placed in the hands of employers, but that tends to focus FE learning on those already in employment. How does the Bill therefore marry up with the worklessness agenda? How does it contribute to the Government's target of ensuring that 80 per cent of working age adults are in employment, when its emphasis is on people already in work?
	The equalities review found that not being in education, employment or training for six months between the ages of 16 and 18 was the single most powerful predictor of unemployment at the age of 21. I would like the Bill to contribute more towards removing the massive cultural barrier of young people and others not in education, employment or training. I know that clause 7 requires the regional LSCs to consult and canvass the views of potential learners, but how is that possible if they are so hard to reach, and therefore disengaged from any such process?
	On Second Reading of this Bill in another place, mention was made of how vital it is to break down the rigidity between further education, higher education and schools. The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made a powerful and thoughtful speech, in which he mentioned the need for that fluidity, and it is something that we in Hartlepool are embracing already.
	The town's college of further education has a centre of vocational excellence—a CoVE—in engineering, and two other CoVEs in different disciplines. There are close links between the college and St Hild's school, which is a specialist engineering school whose high-tech lab and engineering facilities I am due to open in the next few weeks. Teachers from St Hild's provide input into the CoVE; conversely, tutors from the college teach 15 and 16-year-olds at school or on the college campus. That fluidity is vital if we are to encourage more of our young people to enter engineering, one of the growth areas for the Hartlepool economy in the years to come.
	It seems to me that FE colleges with a modern and welcoming environment—they are not schools, with their possible memories and ramifications, nor yet universities, which to learners at that stage might seem out of reach—are the ideal place to widen participation and tackle the problem of disengagement. I therefore ask Ministers to question whether this Bill does all that it could to address that specific concern.
	Foundation degrees, in their short existence, have been an enormous success in my part of the world. Hartlepool college of further education provides a range of foundation degrees accredited by the universities of Sunderland and Teesside on subjects from assisted learning and working with young people to construction and manufacturing maintenance engineering. Cleveland college of art and design is reconfiguring its courses so that all its higher education courses will be taught from its Hartlepool campus from September. It will be launching new foundation degrees in applied arts, as well as in costume construction for stage and screen—whatever that is—contemporary textile practice and commercial photography. The number of students on the campus studying for HE degrees will rise from 200 to 700. Hartlepool sixth-form college provides a full-time law degree in conjunction with Leeds Metropolitan university. Students complete their first year in Hartlepool and then transfer to Leeds for the second and third years.
	Foundation degrees have been a success in my area because they have been undertaken in a spirit of collaboration and partnership. They allow real investment to come into Hartlepool, which in turn lifts people's aspirations because they have the opportunity to take valued qualifications that they would previously have been unable to take, and that very much widens participation. However, I am concerned that allowing FE providers to award their own degrees will result in unnecessary and counter-productive competition and rivalry between FE and HE providers, which would prevent collaboration. On Second Reading in another place, my noble Friend Lord Sawyer, who is the chancellor of the university of Teesside, highlighted the university's £6 million capital investment in a higher education centre at Hartlepool college of further education, and there is the prospect of the university putting much more investment into Hartlepool. However, I ask the House, and particularly Ministers, to consider whether the university would readily co-operate with Hartlepool if it felt that potential students were somehow being poached? Although those concerns were addressed during the Bill's passage through another place, I hope that during the Committee stage in this House Ministers will mitigate such risks so that the awarding of foundation degrees strengthens the partnership between FE and HE and does not compromise the principle of ensuring that there is mutually beneficial support and provision and the best strategic fit.
	The Government are right to see skills as the major factor in developing our economy in the 21st century and also to place FE providers at the heart of that challenge. I hope that the Bill can address such challenges, subject to the concerns that I have raised, and I wish it well in its passage through the House.

Stewart Jackson: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright). We have had a great education in this debate. We had the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) who demonstrated Smith's law, according to which, it is fair to say, a speech expands in inverse proportion to the length of a Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley), who is now in his place, talked cobblers, as befits someone who represents that fine town in Northamptonshire.
	I would very much like to have supported the Bill, but I cannot, in common with my hon. Friends, because it lacks imagination and is, unfortunately, about structures—it is a missed opportunity. It is also about bureaucracy and fails to reflect the reality of further education in the real world. In common with others, I believe that Ministers have missed a trick in failing to wait for the final recommendations of Lord Leitch's report on skills. They should have done so because it would have meant that we could have had a much more fully informed debate.
	I am pleased that my constituency has one of the finest further education colleges in the country: Peterborough regional college. It has 15,000 students, and the adult learning inspectorate of Ofsted has consistently rated it as an outstanding example of a further education college, especially in financial management, for which it has achieved a grade 1. The situation in Peterborough is a microcosm of that throughout the country. The Secretary of State has told us that by about 2020 the number of unskilled jobs will decrease from 3.5 million to 500,000. However, we have a skills crisis now. In 2001, youth unemployment in Peterborough was 8 per cent., but it is now 14.1 per cent. We have 760 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are not in employment, education or training. That figure dates from January 2006 and I believe that the new figures will be published next month.
	Peterborough faces the problem that because it is a regional centre for horticulture, agriculture and food processing and packaging, we have been a magnet since May 2004 for unskilled migrant workers from the accession 8 countries in particular. That has clearly had an impact on youth unemployment and the low-skill, low-wage end of the employment sector, hence the increase in the number of young people claiming jobseeker's allowance.
	At the same time, we are a sustainable growth area. Peterborough city council area is officially registered by the Office for National Statistics as one of the fastest growing economic areas in England. The Government must examine seriously our growing problem of NEETs—people not engaged in employment, education or training—because we must not entrench an underclass of people who feel that they have no way of getting on the ladder to a better life through jobs, skills or courses. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough movingly spoke about people who perhaps consider that it is not their place to be in education. There are working people who think that it is for someone else to have a good education and to improve their lives and those of their families.
	In some respects, the situation is grim. A third of the work force still have no basic school-leaving qualifications. As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South said, one in six people have the literacy skills of an 11-year-old. Five million adults in our country have no academic qualifications at all, which is a serious problem. I am afraid that I am not as willing as others to agree with the rosy hue of how well things are going that has been suggested in the debate.
	As I said earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), the Government have form on grandiose promises and plans on skills, training and enterprise. The Chancellor—the no-spin Prime Minister elect—gave an undertaking that everyone on jobseeker's allowance would have their skills assessed and would attend a mandatory skills course, yet that never happened. On Budget day in 2005, he gave the promise:
	"I have set aside funds to ensure that by 2006 we meet our target that every school pupil has enterprise education."—[ Official Report, 16 March 2005; Vol. 432, c. 263.]
	The Minister for Schools confirmed on 6 November 2006 that that had not happened.
	The Bill is not all bad. We are inclined to support its aspects that will award more independence and autonomy to the FE sector, and we might well do so in Committee. Where it gives employers a greater role in driving a demand-led—not a supply-led, top-down—skills agenda, we will support it. However, I fear that the Bill overemphasises and focuses too much on structures and controls. As my hon. Friends have said, with NEETs up by 29 per cent. since 2001 to 1.24 million, that is a significant problem. We should focus instead on practical solutions.
	The Bill represents the fourth reorganisation in five years, as has been pointed out. I declare an interest, as I was an Investors in People manager in a previous life and I worked closely with small and medium-sized enterprises. The contractual arrangements made between a learning and skills council, Business Link, employers and trainees was tortuous at local level. I can assure the House that it would be punishing in the extreme at regional level.
	We still have 17 bodies overseeing the FE sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) said, 70 per cent. of the work force in 2020 have already finished their statutory education. He makes a pertinent point about adult education. A year or so ago, many of us had constituents writing to us about cuts in adult education and the hike in fees which priced many people out of adult education. Whether it was basket weaving, painting or foreign languages, it may not be important within the great global skills agenda, but it was very important to those individuals. The Minister listened to us and I commend him for it. He called a meeting and spoke to hon. Members individually to try to alleviate their concerns.
	We should not lose sight of the fact that older people have a right to education as well. We need constantly to consider training and up-skilling during work. As an Investors in People manager, I was well aware that for the best employers, the No. 1 issue was not necessarily the bottom line, profit or machinery. It was the power of their people to deliver brilliant results. We should never forget that. It is the reason why we are a successful economy.
	I lived through the last reorganisation of the training and enterprise council in south-west London. I worked for AZTEC. In that reorganisation, unfortunately, the worst TECs were the ones that were considered the templates. The Government looked at them, assessed them as poor—in that case, I believe, it was the south Thames TEC—assumed that all TECs were like that, closed them all and converted them into learning and skills councils.
	The idea that 10 regional learning and skills councils will save money is naive and ridiculous, not to put too fine a point on it. What about redundancy payments? What about office costs, badges, name plaques, job reconfiguration, and consultants, who are ever-present? We know that the current spend on administration alone in LSCs is £1.8 billion. I remain to be convinced that any significant funding will be released as a result of the Government's regional agenda. It is a recipe for bureaucracy, a lack of accountability and obfuscation, which will impact on businesses and their work forces as they see a disconnect between the local employment market and its priorities, and the regional priorities, which are currently articulated by the regional development agencies.
	As I pointed out to the Secretary of State, what is a priority in Hull is entirely different from that which is a priority in Barnsley, Dewsbury, Skipton or York, and that is just in one region. Local is best. Ministers seem confused about whether to regulate or deregulate in the Bill. They seem unwilling, as my hon. Friends observed, to trust the management of FE colleges.
	In respect of clauses 13 to 18, I do not believe that there will be true accountability to the taxpayer, student or employee in respect of substituting the Learning and Skills Council for the Secretary of State. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough made a fluent and eloquent speech, but she was unable to square the circle when directly challenged on that point and about dissolving, incorporating and merging colleges and removing college principals and senior staff.
	We must also focus on improving and strengthening local economies and have regard to local authorities. Ultimately, learning and skills councils do not have the same level of accountability as the Minister on the Treasury Bench; they are unelected, faceless and unaccountable. The Bill fails to mention the 148 local area partnerships, which I believe need a statutory footing. There is no requirement in exercising powers under clauses 14 to 16 to consult local authorities about the opening, merging or closing of colleges. I do not think that that is acceptable.
	Other hon. Members have spoken about the ramifications of clause 17. I believe that the proposal is ill thought out, hasty and confusing. Despite the evidence drawn to our attention by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson), the provision fails to recognise the success or otherwise of foundation degrees awarded by FE colleges. It has the potential to undermine the powerful and pervasive influence of the UK brand in further and higher education, which has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough said, it removes the focus from the raison d'être of further education and what employers want—vocational training at levels 1, 2 and 3, rather than at level 4 and upwards.
	Finally, the sector skills councils sadly have less influence than they need to have to exert leverage and use enlightened self-interest for the benefit of the work force for the long term. Sector skills agreements need to be placed on a statutory basis. The Government could have been so much more ambitious in the proposals. They could have looked at local arrangements to give apprenticeships in housing associations, local authorities and NHS trusts. They could have brought best practice from all those areas into the Bill and assisted that process.
	The Bill needed to focus on light-touch regulation, innovation, local expertise and accountability, a demand-led strategy and a serious recognition that economic exclusion resulting from the current skills crisis is getting worse, not better. Instead, it focuses on structures and command and control. That is why I shall support the amendment in the name of Her Majesty's Opposition.

Gordon Banks: I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute, and to follow the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson), who I am sure will not be too disappointed if I do not agree with everything that he said.
	I should like to bring to the House my personal experiences both in industry and the further education sector. For 20 years before coming to the House, I ran my own business. During that time, I spent a number of years on the board of management of my local college, which has now merged with Falkirk college to form Forth Valley college. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) spoke about engaging employers, which I believe is vital. I was disappointed when I was a further education student at the age of 19, as I was five or six years ago on the board of management, with the role of employers.
	The hon. Members for Havant (Mr. Willetts) and for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) talked about the diplomas for 14 to 19-year-olds. These diplomas can assist in achieving the aims and objectives of the Bill in addressing the skills shortage. The role of FE in delivering the diplomas is fundamental to student progression into full-time FE foundation degrees and then into additional higher education or employment. It is vital to highlight the importance of FE colleges' vital partnership with schools, universities and employers. If we fail to get all the links in the chain right, we fail full stop.
	I want to repeat a plea that has been made tonight about adult learning. I had experience of FE when I was 18 or 19; I also had experience when I was 46 or 47, and my later experiences were much more positive than my earlier ones. In order to strengthen the qualifications and the experience that FE can give, we need to make more demands and create more opportunities for employers to enter the system. When I was 19, I was busy as an assistant planner working on the development of a multi-storey shopping complex and parking facility in Stirling. I was going to the Glasgow College of Building, where what I was being taught bore no resemblance to what I was seeing on the other four days of the week. I gained nothing from that period other than a qualification. We need qualifications that students can put into practice day in day out, whether on day release or in full-time education. They must be relevant and practical.
	I do not mean to be over-critical of an establishment in the 1970s, but at that point the thought of employers being engaged in the system did not exist. We want employers to be engaged now, but we cannot expect them always to put up their hands and say that they want to be involved. We have to ask them and, in some cases, demand that they become involved. No further education college has come to ask what skills my business needs to grow and to develop, and to see whether relevant courses are available in the college.
	The hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) referred to SMEs, which are important. We have heard a lot tonight about how larger plcs can make a contribution, but many regions do not have large plcs and are driven by SMEs. They are the backbone of the economy up and down the UK. We must be imaginative in expressing the need for SMEs to become involved and we must make them understand that they can benefit from their involvement, that there will not necessarily be a financial or a time cost, and that there will be a benefit to them and their sector if they become involved. Possibly we need to make even greater demands.
	We also need to think about the additional skills that we need. As an employer, I need someone with the skills to do the job, but I also need communication skills, punctuality, presentation and interaction, which are fundamental to delivering skills learned through further education or higher education.
	Earlier today, I asked the Secretary of State to clarify accessibility around FE colleges delivering foundation degrees. Many areas have access to FE colleges but do not have access to higher education facilities. The availability of FE colleges to deliver such courses addresses a social aspect of education and training policy, something of which Government Members can be proud.
	I ask the House to consider why we need these changes. The world and the economy are changing. We know about the huge economic growth in India and China, which is impinging on many countries. Low-skill and low-cost jobs have been eroded—frankly, UK plc should not want to be a low-skill, low-cost employer again. As the world changes, so do the things that the UK and individuals need to do. Individuals must recognise that they have a role and responsibility, too. We cannot stand still. The Bill recognises the ever-changing situation in the economic environment. It is an important piece in the jigsaw, and it will allow the UK and individuals to benefit from improvement in learning.

John Hayes: It was intimate, but improper. I am sorry, what I meant is, "Minister, I am about to blight your expectations with my regret". It is a regret shared by almost all of the very many people I spoke to who were connected with or concerned about skills. They regret, as I do, that the Bill is not fit for purpose. The Government must know that, and I cannot believe that the Minister is not embarrassed by its limited ambitions.
	So to my plea—that the Government should take their heads out of the sand and listen to their own advisers. Let us be clear. The Government were so concerned about further education that they commissioned the Foster review. Sir Andrew Foster recommended radical changes for colleges because he recognised that they are stifled by regulation and strangled by red tape. According to Foster, there are17 bodies with a monitoring or regulatory role in FE, stifling innovation and excellence. Foster recommended "less centralisation" and moves to "greater self-regulation". There is none of that in the Bill.
	Worse, where the Government do not disappoint, they offend. Why on earth do they still think that the Learning and Skills Council should be given sweeping new powers to sack college principals and senior managers. Yet the Government do indeed think that, because we heard it confirmed in earlier exchanges. The Secretary of State can currently do some of that, but the new threat to colleges is more draconian. Indeed, I asked him earlier today how often the existing power had been exercised. He hesitatingly said that it had not, so let me clarify.
	In replying to a parliamentary question that I tabled last month, the Minister revealed that the existing powers had "never been used" except where, following the resignation of a governing body, the Secretary of State had been required to appoint new governors. I emphasise again that it has "never been used"—not once. Is it any wonder that the other place voted against this part of the original Bill? The Association of Colleges, Opposition Front Benchers and others have urged the Government to think again and this evening, my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) amplified our appeal.
	Now, to be fair, the Government were so concerned about skills that they commissioned the Leitch report. Lord Leitch, like Sir Andrew Foster, recommended radical reform. This Bill contains nothing of Leitch. It is bizarre by any standards to ask for a detailed study and simultaneously to introduce a Bill to Parliament that pays no attention whatever to the report of that study. Lord Leitch's review revealed just how much work still needs to be done. The scale of the challenge is formidable, as the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) told us in her speech. Even if the Government were to meet their target to improve UK skills by 2020, at least 4 million adults will still not have the literary skills expected of an 11-year-old and 12 million would not have equivalent numeracy skills. Britain would continue to be, in Lord Leitch's words,
	"an 'average performer'—positioned at best, in the middle of the OECD rankings".
	We would continue to have smaller proportions of intermediate and higher level skills than key competitors such as France and America. Skills gaps hinder national progress, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) pointed out, and much is getting worse. There are now 1.25 million young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training—NEETs. That figure is up 15 per cent. since 1997. While we waste a generation's potential, we add to its number as 45,000 16-year-olds leave school each year functionally illiterate and/or innumerate. Asmy hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Jackson) said, it is time to champion the cause of those NEETs. What a tonic it was to hear from him!
	That is not the only thing that is getting worse. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who is not in his place at the moment, said that he celebrated the fact that 250,000 over-60-year-olds were engaged in adult education, yet this week the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education reported that 500,000 adult education places have been lost in the past year. The proportion of adults currently learning or having done so in the past three years has fallen to just 41 per cent. That means that fewer adults now have the opportunity to be inspired in the way that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) described with such eloquence.
	The Learning and Skills Council has played a significant part in our discussions today. This year, the LSC will receive £11 billion of public money—more than the Royal Navy—yet too much of that funding is consumed by complex bureaucracy. Staff costs rose by 26 per cent. between 2001 and 2006, and there are more than 4,400 people directly employed by the LSC. None of them is democratically accountable to their locality, as the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) reminded us.

John Hayes: It is indeed bizarre. Even more bizarrely, we heard that the reorganisation, which is going to save £40 million, is going to cost £50 million. That does not sound like very good maths to me. When we consider the costs of the three previous reorganisations, we realise that it will be donkeys' years before we are back in credit. The conclusion is that we should reorganise less often and save money.
	A study for the Economic and Social Research Council has identified nine layers of bureaucracy that a pound of public expenditure must pass through on its way from Whitehall to learners. No wonder one LSC official told a study,
	"I categorise myself as the confused, trying to be less confused".
	He could have added, "governed by the most confused of all." As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said, at the root of this confusion is the Government's lack of a coherent skills strategy.
	Soon, the Government will publish their detailed response to the Leitch review. Lord Leitch advocates a demand-led system to meet the nation's skills needs. He argues that the present supply-driven model, based on Government planning, has a "poor track record"—his words, not mine—yet the Bill will establish regional LSC councils with precisely such planning functions. When I asked the Secretary of State earlier whether that was a paradox or a contradiction, he said that it was not a paradox. So we must assume that it is a contradiction. Lord Leitch proposes a system driven by employers of the kind advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley). Such a system would bring together the needs of employers and the work of trainers. As a result of the Bill, however, the power of employers to drive the system will be stifled in a way that was highlighted by the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks). The danger of establishing parallel structures is that it would add further confusion.
	Lord Leitch recommended a step change in policy to close the skills gap, yet the Bill will do little to meet the challenges involved. At best, it is a wasted opportunity; at worst, it is a regressive step, tightening the bureaucrats' suffocating grip on further education.Sir Andrew Foster's report, published less than two years ago, argued that colleges also play a vital role in improving employability and skills in their locality. He said that they should work effectively with their local LSCs, helping them to develop and implement strategies, yet the Bill will abolish the local LSCs.
	So, local LSCs are recommended by Foster, the report is published, and then it is rejected by the Government. Leitch brings out his report proposing a root-and-branch reform of the management and funding of skills, and it is ignored.
	When the Minister spoke of the need to ensure a clear vocational pathway, vocational diplomas were at the heart of his thinking. To improve the skills of the nation, it is vital to establish an attractive vocational pathway to match the academic gold standard of GCSEs, A-levels and degrees—a guided pathway leading to employment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) described it. If properly implemented, diplomas provide just such a pathway, and yet the Education and Skills Committee warned in a recent report that,
	"the development work has sometimes been uncomfortably compressed",
	raising doubts about the timetable for implementation.
	The clarity of purpose that characterises the Bill also characterises the diplomas—in other words the Government's intention is not clear at all. There is great confusion about what the diplomas are for, and whether they will deliver rigorous instruction in vocational subjects. Lord Adonis referred to the new awards as recently as May last year as "specialised vocational diplomas", and yet the Minister tells us:
	"When we talk about specialised diplomas, it is important that we do not pigeonhole them as exclusively vocational."—[ Official Report, Westminster Hall, 8 February 2007; Vol. 456, c. 378WH.]
	The awarding body, OCR, told the Education and Skills Committee that such confusion had led to a lack of consistency across the five diplomas being introduced first. It argues:
	"The first five Diploma Development Partnerships have not demonstrated a common understanding of the nature of the Diplomas".
	As well as confusion, the constantly changing nature of diplomas has created concerns that they will fall between two stools—neither sufficiently academic nor vocational. The Nuffield review of skills argued that there was a danger that the new emphasis on theoretical learning might push specialised diplomas towards becoming more general, rather than vocational, awards. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority told the Education and Skills Committee:
	"In ambition and scope, complexity and potential, the introduction of a Diploma qualification"
	is
	"without parallel in any other country".
	Others, including the Institution of Engineering and Technology, have argued that there is insufficient time to introduce the diplomas without hazard. Of particular concern is the warning from the Edge Foundation:
	"The current time-scales are unrealistic—some would say dishonest—and unless relaxed the Specialised Diplomas will fail as have very many similar initiatives over previous decades."
	In a moment of sincerity, even the Secretary of Sate said that the diplomas could go horribly wrong. Unless we are confident that they will go happily right, we owe it to employers, colleges, schools and, most of all, children, to delay their introduction. To do otherwise would add irresponsibility to doubt, and would tarnish the diploma brand so badly that it would become unattractive to learners and employers.
	Like most Governments, this Government do some good things. The decision to extend foundation degree-awarding powers to FE colleges is right. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) said, however, it is vital that rigour is maintained, that the relationship between FE and HE is guaranteed, and that the matter is properly reviewed. We should proceed on that basis with enthusiasm. Though it is not surprising that there is doubt given that the consultation was, to be generous, very limited. It seems as limited as was that on clause 25, if we are to believe the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig).
	Much of the history of the Labour Government is of horror and disappointment. The Bill is not horrible, but it is deeply disappointing. It is too piecemeal, limited and unambitious to make a significant contribution to tackling Britain's skills crisis. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant said, it is not what is in the Bill, but what is not in the Bill, that matters. The Bill is not big enough to meet the challenges we face for the good of our people, and the good of our country.
	The reasoned amendment directs us to the big picture that the Bill ignores. Britain's future depends on a skills base that is built on the fulfilled potential of a new generation of craftsmen. That generation's future is being jeopardised by the obstinate inaction of Ministers who should know better.
	Those arguments were put time and time again during the course of the Bill's passage in the other place. As I said, the Minister has been generous and professional in the way that he has listened to those arguments and has responded, but I say to him in honesty that he cannot really believe that the Bill is fit for purpose. How can it be when we expect any day now the Government's response to the Leitch review, which is bound by necessity to look at the fundamental weaknesses with our skills system; which is bound, in my judgment, to require further legislation? Why did the Government press ahead with a further education Bill in full knowledge that Leitch would report? Surely we are not going to have another FE Bill in the next Queen's Speech—or are the Government so short of ideas that they have to revisit the same subjects time and time again? That is not reasonable for the House and it is equally unreasonable as far as FE colleges, teachers, learners, employers and all those involved with skills are concerned. It is simply not good government.
	The House should support the Opposition amendment for the sake of apprentices, who deserve to learn by the side of the best in each craft. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, apprenticeships in this country, though not in crisis, are certainly in difficulties. It is quite unacceptable that, in the words of the adult learning inspectorate, it is possible to complete an apprenticeship without ever having set foot in a workplace. That cannot be right. Declining levels of employer engagement; declining levels of mentoring; and some apprenticeships with very little workplace element are not worthy of the name "apprenticeship", because they do that brand no good at all.
	The House should support the Opposition amendment for the sake of colleges, which need the freedom to innovate and excel. As I travel around the country visiting colleges, as the Minister, the Secretary of State and, I guess, all of us do, I see many professionals doing an immense amount of excellent work. Surely we should have faith in those professionals by entrusting them with the freedom that they could use so favourably in the interests of learners.
	Most of all, however, the House should support the Opposition amendment for the sake of the lost generation—the sad, forgotten army of NEETs, which at 1.25 million people is roughly 15 per cent. higher than in 1997. Before I left home for the House this morning, I grasped my six-year-old son to my breast, like every parent does, and I looked at him and thought what he might do in the future, as, again, every father does. Then I thought of all those 16, 17 and 18-year-olds—hopeless and helpless, and only looking forward to a future of unemployment. When I came to the House tonight I thought that I would say a word—make a passionate plea—on behalf of that lost generation. We owe it to them to support the amendment. That would be a fitting response to a Bill that is unimaginative and unworthy of the scale of the challenge that we face; quite simply, unfit for purpose.

Bill Rammell: We have had a good and constructive debate, and I am grateful to all hon. Members who contributed to it. I start by reciprocating the acknowledgment of the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) that we have rightly discussed the Bill across the Benches and improved it as it has progressed. I believe that where can do that, it is the right thing to do.
	I start from the premise that I strongly believe that our further education sector is probably more life-transforming than schools or universities. There are literally countless examples up and down the country of further education colleges that have given people a second chance and have immeasurably improved the quality of their lives. For too long, however, the further education sector has felt neglected and undervalued. I believe that under this Government that has changed, and will change further.
	We were the first Government to commission two successive skills White Papers, highlighting the crucial role of further education in delivering skills for work. We commissioned Andrew Foster to conduct the most comprehensive review of our further education system to date. We commissioned, across Whitehall, Lord Leitch to undertake a detailed analysis of what we need to do to meet our skills aspirations by 2020 and the critical role that further education will play in the process. This is the first further education Bill that we have discussed in the House for 15 years. Further education is now centre stage in a way that it has not been in the past, and we should all welcome that.
	In the past decade we have rightly increased investment in further education significantly, by almost 50 per cent. in real terms. That is a huge contrast with the 14 per cent. real-terms cut that took place in the five years preceding 1997. We know that a poor environment leads to poor learning, but in 1996-97 there was not one penny for further education in the earmarked capital budget. This year the Government will spend £500 million on further education capital projects, which will shortly increase to £850 million. In virtually every college I visit, all over the country, I see physical examples of regeneration.

Bill Rammell: That figure relates to changes that have already taken place. The savings are already being delivered under the LSC's strand 7, and those changes will further streamline the LSC's operations. I shall deal with the right hon. Gentleman's point in detail later in my speech.
	Because of the Government's extra investment, because of our reforms and because of the phenomenally hard work of those who work in the further education sector, to whom we should all pay tribute, we have seen significant improvements in performance over the past decade. In the past six years alone, overall success rates in further education colleges have rocketed by a third, from 56 per cent. in 1999 to 2000 to 77 per cent. in 2005-06. We have seen 1.6 million learners attain their first skills for life qualifications in literacy, language and numeracy. We have—rightly—increased dramatically the number of people gaining both level 2 and level 3 qualifications.
	Much of today's debate has centred on the relationship between the Bill and the Leitch agenda. Let me respond in detail to the points that have been made. The Leitch report built on reforms already introduced through the further education White Paper and, indeed, the Bill. The Bill is about the supply side preparing to deliver a more responsive system, increasingly engaging with employer needs, while Leitch focuses more closely on stimulating and channelling the demand side. If we are genuinely to rise to Lord Leitch's challenge, Government, employers and individuals must work together. That is why we are engaged in a process of consensus-building on the Leitch recommendations. Should we and partners agree at the end of that process that any of Leitch's recommendations require legislation—and we may well take that view—we will use a separate legislative vehicle. In the meantime—and I consider this the really important point—there is no benefit to be had from stalling the momentum for change which has built up in the further education system, and which the Bill enables us to take forward.

John Hayes: The Bill embeds the LSC, at regional level, in the structure for managing and funding of skills. Lord Leitch says
	"the switch to demand-led funding and end to the supply-side planning of adult skills provision fundamentally changes the role of planning bodies, such as the LSC".
	In other words, Lord Leitch says that the LSC should have less of a planning function, while the Minister says in the Bill that it should have more of a planning function at regional level.

Bill Rammell: Lord Leitch made it clear—as the Government have made clear—that the role of the LSC can and should continue to evolve and change, but Lord Leitch also made it clear that instinctively he was not in favour of ripping up structures and starting again simply for the hell of it, but that we had to reform the process overall.
	The two other significant areas of debate this evening have been interventions and foundation degree awarding powers. On intervention powers, we need a new relationship with colleges which will release the energy of providers in order to focus on the improvements that we need and to meet the needs of learners overall. On the one hand, we have committed to new freedoms for FE providers to enable them to transform their provision. However, that must be matched by clear commitments to continue to drive up the quality of the system. We now have much less failure and unsatisfactory provision in the FE system than in the recent past, but we have to ensure that we eliminate such poor provision. As any failing provision means that we are failing learners, that is imperative for all of us. The White Paper made it clear that we would establish a robust intervention strategy, and the Bill seeks to do that.
	We will ensure that the concerns that have been expressed during the passage of the Bill will be addressed when we introduce amendments in Committee. We retain our commitment to intervene, but we will also address the concerns that have been raised, and I believe that we can come up with a set of proposals that establish the role of the LSC and that of the governing body in dealing with failure and underperformance.
	One of the most innovative aspects of the Bill is the proposal to allow high-performing colleges to award their own foundation degrees. Foundation degrees give students a strong basis for employment in their chosen sector. Programmes are designed and delivered in partnership with employers. The amount of people on foundation degrees continues to rise; there are currently about 61,000, and we are confident of moving towards 100,000 by the end of the decade. There are significant rewards for students; they have better job prospects, and once they are in work they have better prospects for progression. Foundation degrees also provide an accessible route for many people who would not otherwise go into higher education.
	Some FE colleges already run foundation degree programmes, but colleges without full degree-awarding powers cannot award the qualifications in their own right. We strongly contend that if they meet the necessary quality criteria they should be able to do so. The measure aims to innovate and to free up providers within the system. The robust quality criteria on which we will be taking these changes forward are based closely on those for full taught degree awarding powers. We have rightly listened carefully to the feedback that we received since the Bill's publication and that has helped us to strengthen the proposals on foundation degrees. For example, a Government amendment to address the issue of colleges franchising their foundation degrees was rightly passed in another place, and another Government amendment required a report on the effect of proposals to be laid before Parliament.
	It is vital that all foundation degrees are of the same standard and carry the same academic value regardless of whether they are awarded by a college or a university. A foundation degree is a significant and important qualification in its own right, but it needs to provide a gateway to more advanced levels of study, should the learner wish to pursue that option. All foundation degree awarding institutions will be expected to have progression routes to more advanced levels of study in place in respect of their foundation degrees. Nevertheless, because of the widespread interest in the matter of progression, I am minded to introduce a further amendment that will focus on the importance of progression routes. The Opposition have pushed strongly for that.

John Hayes: I am grateful to the Minister for those assurances. He has addressed a number of our concerns, which are shared by the university sector. Will he, however, go one step further? He has travelled a long way with me, and I am inviting him to take one extra step. Will he agree that these degrees might be jointly promoted and marketed, thus illustrating the strength of the partnership between HE and FE to potential learners? That would be helpful. I cannot see any downside to that. He might want to make further concessions on that either this evening or during the course of the Bill's passage.

Bill Rammell: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I do not think that the issue requires concessions, but I am sure that in Committee we can discuss in detail the way in which further education colleges and universities can work together to promote those crucial qualifications. We have responded to concerns by introducing proposals on foundation degrees that ensure that the system is as innovative and flexible as possible so that we genuinely meet the country's skills needs.
	May I address specific comments made in our debate, starting with the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), who led for the Opposition? It was noteworthy that we managed to go through the whole evening debating education without one comment from Opposition spokesmen about the issue of grammar schools, but perhaps that is a subject for discussion on another occasion. The hon. Gentleman said that the Bill was something of a missed opportunity, and he made significant criticism of the 17 different regulatory and inspection bodies. We have already responded to concerns on those issues, as well as the concerns expressed by Andrew Foster. We have merged Ofsted and the adult learning inspectorate, and we have streamlined the Learning and Skills Council to reduce the planning burden. We have put colleges in charge of their own regulation, and we have invited them to introduce proposals. We have reduced the burden on colleges imposed by data collection and the publication of documents. It is far from the case that we have not ensured that there is a more appropriate system of regulation for our colleges.
	The hon. Gentleman made significant criticism, too, of the burden of bureaucracy on the Learning and Skills Council. For the record, may I make it clear that the LSC continues to make significant savings on its administration budget, and has delivered savings of more than £100 million? Compared with its predecessor bodies under the Conservative Government, expenditure on administration has fallen from 4.6 per cent. to 1.9 per cent. I believe, too, that the hon. Gentleman made a false accusation that the proposals on foundation degree awarding powers had come out of the blue. If he reads very carefully what Andrew Foster said in his report, he will see that he explicitly recommends that consideration be given to allowing some colleges that meet the quality criteria the ability to award their own qualifications. Far from coming out of the blue, the proposals were very much in the grain of Andrew Foster's recommendations.
	I will take many criticisms on the Government's behalf, but being criticised by the hon. Gentleman for our record on apprenticeships is a bit rich. In the 1980s and 1990s, the concept of an apprenticeship had almost disappeared in this country. When the Government came to power, there were 75,000 apprenticeships a year; today, 255,000 are being delivered. Yes, we need to do more, but we are moving firmly in the right direction.
	My right hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) and for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) raised important issues concerning the scrutiny of the legislation and the enabling powers of the Welsh Assembly. I should make it clear that in Committee every line of the Bill will be scrutinised. Any proposed measure by the National Assembly for Wales must be fully debated by the Assembly, and we will ensure that there is adequate and proper scrutiny of the proposals.
	The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) made a criticism of 16 to 19 funding, and she advocated that it be transferred to local authorities. I am not convinced by her argument, and it is usually the case in these issues that the Liberal Democrats support the view of providers. In my experience of talking to college principals up and down the country, there would not be support for her proposition.
	We then had a very interesting and well informed contribution from the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), whose remarks drew on his experience in these matters. He was absolutely right to highlight the importance of the status of vocational education and the FE system, and came very close to supporting the proposals for restructuring of the LSC that we are proposing. He said that he did not support the 47 area councils in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, but he now seems to be supporting what we are proposing in this Bill.
	The hon. Member for Daventry also raised important points about the qualification reform process. Our reform of vocational qualifications is to be delivered by 2009, and that is an exceedingly important issue. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned foundation degrees in the Bologna process, but there is no incompatibility there. Indeed, the Bergen communiqué at the last but one Bologna conference explicitly recognised the principle of foundation degrees in national systems. That gives us the licence and ability to move forward with that agenda.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Ms Smith) made an excellent speech that demonstrated her enormous personal experience of FE, and it was a fluent and persuasive contribution. She highlighted the importance of quality in the FE system, and spoke about the need to continue to professionalise the work force. One of the Government's commitments is to ensure that there is at least 30 hours' continuous professional development for people in the FE system. That is very much part of the way forward.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough also asked how we could ensure that the LSC and colleges were responding to the employers' agenda. One significant way that we are doing that is through the roll-out of the train to gain initiative—the incredibly radical proposition that, for the first time in this country, adults in the workplace who do not have a full level 2 qualification should be guaranteed that training. I am extremely heartened by the evaluation of the initiative so far, with employers who have engaged in it expressing something like 89 per cent. satisfaction. We are also doing very well in accessing hard-to-reach employers.
	The hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) expressed concern about the marketing of train to gain. In fact, we are ahead of profile on many of the benchmarks for success that we have set for the initiative.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) made a number of points, and claimed that officials in the Department for Education and Skills had no experience of the FE sector. That may have been true in the past, but the Department has undertaken a deliberate policy of recruiting officials with some direct experience of the sector, and that was absolutely the right way forward. Also, I disagree with my hon. Friend's view that we are squeezing adult education to fund the provision for young people. That is not the case: what we are doing is shifting the priority in adult education from shorter to longer courses, to courses that offer progression, to skills-for-life programmes, and to work-based delivery. I believe that they are the right priorities.
	The hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) said that all Governments would admit to being responsible for neglecting the FE system. That may have been true of the previous Conservative Government, but it is most certainly not true of this one.
	My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) spoke fluently of her experience of further and higher education. She gave strong support for the regionalisation of the LSC structure. The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright) made some important points, as did the other hon. Members who spoke in the debate.
	In conclusion, our further education system has achieved a great deal in the past 10 years. We need to do more and to respond to the skills needs in the country. To make that a reality, we need a strong and excellent FE system. The Bill will help us to achieve that and I commend it to the House.

Peter Atkinson: I am very glad to have this opportunity to raise a somewhat unusual subject—a matter relating to intelligence and a former KGB agent who worked for the British security services and eventually defected to the UK, aided and abetted by our security services, and is now living in the north of England in circumstances of penury, which I believe shows the UK in a bad light.
	The man concerned is the former KGB agent Viktor Makarov, who has now moved to the north of England. I will give a brief résumé of this man's history. The Minister will be aware of the background to the case, but I believe that this is the first time it has been raised in the Chamber, although other Members have sought to help him in the past.
	Viktor Makarov joined the KGB in 1975 and was inducted into what was known as the KGB university; coincidentally, he was in the same intake as Vladimir Putin, the current President of Russia. On graduation in 1980, Makarov was posted to the cryptanalytical department, which specialised in decoding telegrams and messages from embassies in Russia and around the world. These were obtained by many different methods, including the use of extensive bugging, a technique at which the Soviet Union was a master. Those who follow these matters may remember a case where the American embassy was presented with the great seal of the United States, courtesy of the people of Moscow; it was subsequently found to contain a bug.
	Makarov spoke Greek and was initially used to translate messages passing from the Greek embassies around the world. After five years, he had a wide knowledge of the way in which Russian dissidents were treated by the regime. He was particularly affected by the repression of the Solidarity campaign when martial law was introduced in Poland. At that stage, he decided that he would make contact with western intelligence.
	Makarov was helped in this by a woman who was to become his fiancée, Olga Bireva, who was an interpreter who worked at trade fairs held in Russia. She eventually contacted representatives of the British Secret Intelligence Service, which she and he believed was the most secure of all the intelligence services operating in the Soviet Union.
	For two years he passed information, until he was arrested in 1987. The evidence against him was slight: a transcription of a message from the German embassy in Prague that he had passed some years before to a man involved in illegal foreign exchange dealings—a man he had worked with in the KGB. The man, who had been arrested in connection with the foreign exchange dealings, had identified Makarov, presumably in order to help to get a lesser sentence. Had the KGB discovered that Makarov had been spying, he would have been shot, undoubtedly. As it was, he was tried and jailed for 10 years. He was sent to the Gulag, to the notorious Perm 35 camp in the Ural mountains. He was freed in early 1992, a few months after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
	On being freed, he returned to Moscow and contacted the British embassy. He was taken to the UK by MI6 via Latvia. MI6 equipped him with a false diplomatic passport and had him pose as a Greek business man, using his knowledge of the language. On his arrival here he was looked after, but the promises that he says he was made of a new identity and a pension were never fulfilled. Finally, after months of dispute, he was offered a one-off payment of £65,000 to buy a house, which he accepted. Ever since then, the UK Government have used this as an excuse to say that he agreed to a full and final settlement of his case. Before he moved to the north, he had lived a lifeof bedsits, flats and, at one stage, sheltered accommodation.
	Shortly before Easter, Mr. Makarov staged a hunger strike in Parliament square, which, after nearly two weeks, he called off after I promised to table a parliamentary question, which I duly did. This was the second time he had been on hunger strike; some years before, over 56 days he had lost nearly 60 lb. He called off the hunger strike because he was promised that his case would be reassessed. On 16 December of that year, he and his psychiatrist met with an MI5 officer. He said that he was given reason to believe that his case could be resolved positively. Since then there has been nothing at all.
	A number of Members have tried to help Mr. Makarov, including the hon. Members for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell), who I am pleased to say is sitting on the Front Bench, and the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who also tried without success.
	Since Mr. Makarov arrived in this country, his mental health has deteriorated, no doubt as a combination of what he went through when he was detained in Perm 35 and what has happened since he arrived in this country, when he was effectively left without friends, support or, initially, a good command of the English language, which meant that he was unable to get work or look after himself. Today, he is in a sorry state, existing on disability allowance and in danger of falling into arrears with the payments on his house. His mental health is still a major problem, and he undergoes psychiatric treatment.
	The murder of Alexander Litvinenko, allegedly by former KGB officers, has raised concerns about Mr. Makarov's security, as have approaches by members of the Russian-speaking community in the north, some of whom appear to know much more about him than they could have possibly known unless they had been briefed beforehand. I have been reminded tonight that about a year ago the Russian Parliament passed a law allowing people who are allegedly traitors to the country to be killed abroad, which has fuelled his concern for his safety.
	All approaches to the Government, which have been made by various hon. Members to the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary, and to the Conservative Government, when the approach was made to the then Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, have simply been brushed off. I have a letter from the Foreign Secretary to the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, which is two paragraphs long:
	"contact and progress was not made easy in view of Mr. Makarov's state of mind and reluctance to receive care and medical treatment. Perhaps Mr. Makarov should now consider seeking further support from the medical and social services."
	That is a typical answer.
	Mr. Makarov called off his second hunger strike in Parliament square because I tabled a parliamentary question:
	"To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will meet Mr. Victor Makarov, to discuss arrangements for his future security and well being in the UK."
	The Minister, whom I am grateful to see on the Front Bench tonight, replied:
	"Mr. Makarov's local police force are aware of his background and are best placed to offer advice."—[ Official Report, 16 April 2007; Vol. 459, c. 510W.]
	In my view, that was not a helpful comment to a man in his particular situation.
	The question is why a man who was effectively an ally of this country against the communist regime in the Soviet Union has been treated in that way. Is it simply because he is an irritating thorn in the flesh, or is it because his information was not worth very much money? The latter certainly cannot be the case, because having an agent in the KGD 16 directorate, the code-breaking directorate, was extremely important—knowing what one's opponents know is a vital intelligence tool.

Julian Lewis: I have read about this case in the papers along the lines that have been explained to the House. I suggest that although it may be impossible for the Minister to make a detailed comment on this particular case, he ought to make at least a general comment on the importance of the Secret Intelligence Service being seen to offer both protection and a pension to anyone who has risked their life, let alone actually been imprisoned, engaged in human intelligence operations for this country. Otherwise, we will send out a terrible signal to anybody who might be thinking about helping this country and its intelligence services in the future.

Peter Atkinson: I agree with my hon. Friend, who has made an important point that needs reinforcing. The way in which this man has been treated will certainly send out a bad signal to anybody who might be tempted to do the same.
	Mr. Makarov had an interview with an American historian called David Kahn, who is well known as a historian of code breaking, particularly in the second world war. David Kahn interviewed Mr. Makarov because he was thinking of writing a book on more recent code breaking during the cold war. He is in no doubt that Mr. Makarov's intelligence was of value.
	Another source that mentions the role played by Mr. Makarov is the book jointly written by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin—I apologise for massacring the Russian language, Mr. Speaker. Vasili Mitrokhin was a prominent defector from the KGB, who produced a substantial volume called "The Mitrokhin Archive" with Christopher Andrew. In the book, he mentions the number of high-ranking KGB officers who were attracted to work for the British security service as penetration agents or as defectors. They included names that will be known to members of the public such as Oleg Gordievsky, as well as Mitrokhin himself, and Victor Makarov is listed as one of the six who played a valuable role. His credentials were good. He was clearly a valuable agent, and any idea that he was not should be dismissed. The only theory that I can think of is that because the cold war had ended when he was freed from Russia he became an embarrassing anachronism to the British security services in the new world.
	Everyone I know who has had dealings with Mr. Makarov—journalists as well as hon. Members and those who tried to make a documentary about him—share a frustration about the unexplained brush-offs from Ministers and others. We have a sense that he is a decent man badly treated by a country that he tried to help. As a final footnote, when he was arrested at his fiancée's flat in Moscow in 1987, they kissed goodbye and he never saw her again. He was subsequently told, although he does not know whether it is true, that she committed suicide.
	I know that the Minister will be unable to say too much tonight, but I urge him to revisit the case to see if something can be done to help Victor Makarov before his predicament gets worse and leads to serious consequences for him. He is no doubt a stubborn man. He believes that what he did for this country was the right thing to do. He believes that the promises that were made to him have not been honoured, and his pride is offended by the fact that he has to try to scratch a living off disability allowances instead of getting the pension to which he feels that he should be properly entitled. He is quite capable of repeating the hunger strike that he has undertaken on two previous occasions, but next time it could have much more serious consequences.

Julian Lewis: When the Minister talks about the possibility of complaining to the oversight body, does that simply mean that people can complain if they believe that the security services have done something against them or could, for example, someone who had loyally served the security and intelligence services and been denied a pension complain about that?

Tony McNulty: I shall deal with that briefly later.
	I have outlined the reasons why I cannot go further into the details surrounding Mr Makarov or any other individual case, save for the following information. Mr. Makarov has been the subject of several letters from his previous constituency Members of Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) and, before that, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott).
	Since Mr. Makarov's arrival in the UK in 1992, a series of attempts have been made to assist him and tackle his concerns without conceding their validity. With the benefit of advice from his legal representatives, he accepted a generous lump sum payment in 2001, to which the hon. Member for Hexham referred. He agreed that it was a full and final settlement of any claims that he had made against the UK Government. He has also complained about his treatment to the Security Service and intelligence services tribunal, which did not find in his favour.
	On Mr. Makarov's concerns about his personal security, Northumbria police are aware of his background, would be informed of any specific threats and are best placed to offer appropriate advice, which would be the normal process for anyone who felt that their personal safety was in jeopardy. We have 43 police forces in this country, all suitably equipped with special branches and so on to deal with such matters among others.
	I am terribly sorry if the response to the last question was unhelpful, but I have set out the facts as they can be laid out at the moment in this country. I have tried to explain how the security and intelligence services are accountable, among other things, to this House. I have tried to explain in some detail why it is not appropriate for me to go into any more detail than I already have on this specific case. I have tried to put at least some of these matters on the record from the Government's perspective purely to be helpful rather than otherwise.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes toEleven o'clock.